


Peace talks and Pastries

by dimircharmer



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Blood Magic, Blood and Gore, Cullen critical, F/F, Guns, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mage Rights, Mentions of Violence, Modern AU, Rite of Tranquility, Smoking, Violence, coffee shop AU, liberal re-interpretations of canon, mage circles, magic fights, more and more plot as we go along lmao, ok more like political drama feat. coffee shop
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-04-22 16:06:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 30,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4841801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimircharmer/pseuds/dimircharmer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The inquiry into the conditions of the circles across Thedas is an ongoing, highly visible political issue, sparked by the destruction of Kirkwall's chantry one year ago. In the year since, violence has erupted all across the continent, and the Conclave called by the Divine may be the only chance anyone has at peace. </p><p>In the middle of all of this, former enchanter of the Ostwick circle and current barrista Rayla really just wants to stay out of the way and flirt with the ambassador who comes in every day for coffee. Unfortunately, nothing is as simple or easy as she would like it to be.<br/>*<br/>Modern/coffee shop AU, magic is real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introductions

Things were quiet, more or less, as Rayla began the process of opening Skyhold Café. At six in the morning, the early morning rush had not started, and all that was to be done was to prepare the coffee, put the pastries in the oven and pull the chairs down from the tables. Skyhold was small enough that even the morning shift was only a single person job, and ever since the previous server quit unexpectedly, Rayla had taken over her former position as server from her old role of dishwasher. The past six months at Skyhold had been good to her. She only ever saw the café’s owner in passing, once or twice a week, when she came to collect the money in the till and take the inventory order for the week ahead. All in all, an impossibly good job, considering.

And, as she checked the clock on the wall, it was almost time for her favourite customer. For the past three weeks, at six thirty-five on the dot, Josephine medium-latte-two-shots-blackberry-pastry-please had come through the front doors, set up in one of the tables out front by the windows and read documents for two hours. She was even polite when returning her dishes, occasionally pulling Rayla away from whatever chore or cleaning she had been doing to chat with her across the counter.

Today, however, she had company. Josephine, with her dazzling smile, her briefcase and her blue-and-gold scarf was accompanied by three others. A shorter redheaded woman in an impressive hooded coat and a pair of taller individuals, a man and a woman, locked in conversation together.

Josephine flashed her a smile, as she unwound her scarf and unbuttoned her jacket. Rayla couldn’t help but return it as she made her way back behind the counter, and she did her best to ignore both the blush she could feel on her cheeks and the intrigued look the redhead shot Josephine.

“The usual, I assume?” Rayla asked Josephine. Josephine nodded gratefully, before turning to her companions. “A pot of tea for Leliana, I am sure?” She asked. The redheaded woman, Leliana, apparently, nodded. “And for you, Cassandra, Cullen?”

As the last two members of the group looked up, Rayla froze. The woman, she had no idea about, but the man studying the menu over her head could hardly have been mistaken for anyone else. Cullen Rutherford, Knight-Captain of Kirkwall, former Templar and current expert-witness on the inquisition into the mage circles was standing in front of her, deliberating over sandwich choices. Rayla wondered if they could see her hands shaking, as they hovered over the register.

“Just a coffee, please.” Said Cassandra.

“The chicken wrap, and a cup of coffee” said Cullen Rutherford, former knight captain of the most brutal circle in Thedas. “No sugar.”

Rayla, though she had suddenly stopped being able to breathe, nodded and rang them through. She gestured for them to sit at Josephine’s regular table by the window before turning to prepare their drinks. Josephine gave her a concerned glance over the counter, and shooed her companions on ahead without her.

“Are you quite alright?” She said, Antivan flirting delicately across her words “You seem a little under the weather.”

“Just a headache” Rayla lied, handing Josephine her change. “Nothing to worry about.” Josephine didn’t seem convinced, but at Leliana’s ‘Josie!’ from the table in the corner, left her to prepare the order. Rayla allowed herself two deep, heaving breaths at the counter, before she turned to ready the food. In too short a time, four mugs, two plates and a small pot of tea were ready to go. All that was left was to deliver them. Rayla took a deep breath, and slid them onto her tray.

They were arguing, she became aware, as she approached the table. The clammed up as she started to lay dishes down, and she wasn’t sure if that was more reassuring or less. She finally put down the last plate, Josephine’s blueberry tart, and turned to leave, when –oh maker¬- Cullen grabbed her arm.

Her tray and stomach dropped at the same time, the former clattering loudly on the floor. Rayla could feel her breath hitch in her chest even as she kept her arm limp, and as always fought the instinct to pull away from the hand on her arm.  
“Do I know you from somewhere?” Cullen asked, brows drawing tight. The scars over his lips wrinkled as he frowned.

“Nosir” Rayla said without making eye contact, praying that time and a haircut would be enough difference that he would forget the mage attending him during his visit to the Ostwick circle three years prior.

“Are you sure?” He pulled her back around to face him, and she shoved her other hand into the pocket of her apron to hide the way it was shaking, even as she spun into his pull. “That’s a Marcher accent, did you ever live in Kirkwall?”

She shook her head again “Sir-” There was more she wanted to say, but they snagged in her throat on the way out, and she opted to try to keep quiet rather than risk screaming.

He peered up at her face, half hidden beneath choppy bangs, cut in a truckstop bathroom on the Ferelden border three-quarters of a year ago. “You seem so familiar” he said “Where would we have met?”

“Messre” Rayla pleaded, at the same time Josephine’s voice cut across the table

“Cullen that is enough”. Rayla looked up, and became aware of the three other women glaring at Cullen around the table. He dropped her arm, and she hurriedly took a half step back, just out of arm's-reach. Josephine was furious, glaring Cullen across the table with more venom than Rayla had thought her capable of. Thankfully, one of Skyhold's other regulars, a Dalish diplomat, took that moment to enter the café, and gave her an excuse to escape the situation.

By the time she taken care of Lavellan’s tea and muffin, the morning rush was well and truly under way, and she was able to avoid the party at the front until they left an hour and a half later. Even though Josephine leaving was usually a disappointment, Rayla couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief as she left with the rest of her group before she turned back to the milk steamer.

  
***

  
“Rayla!”

Rayla turned around at the sound of her name and spotted Josephine standing outside Skyhold, twisting the strap of her briefcase nervously in her fingers. It was nearing six in the evening, and the street-lights around haven were just starting to flicker on in the dusk light.

“I was hoping I could catch you, I was afraid you had left already” Josephine said “I wanted to apologise, for Cullen’s behaviour earlier today. It was entirely inappropriate, I don’t know what he was thinking. I’ll not be bringing them back here, I can promise you.”

Rayla felt herself sag in relief “Thank you.” She said “Really. I appreciate it.”

“Still, I feel I must make this up to you” Josephine said. “Will you allow me to buy you a drink?

Rayla tossed a glance back into the coffee shop behind her, where Cadesh had taken over for the late-night shift and took a quick inventory. Her tips from the day were safely deposited into the front pocket of her bag, her ID was in her wallet, and she still had three lyrium tablets in the blister pack tucked into the inside pocket of her coat.

“Alright” She said, and was rewarded with Josephine beaming at her. “Where are we going?”

Josephine pointed down the street, at an old but upscale bar Rayla had always considered far out of her price range. “The Herald’s rest” She said. “It is a quiet little place, and far enough away from my work that I can ensure we will not be interrupted.” Her arm dropped, and turned back to face Rayla.

“It occurs to me that we have not been properly introduced” She said, and extended her hand. “I am Lady Josephine Montilyet, Originally of Antiva, Ambassador for the inquisition, for the time being.”

“Rayla Hannlin” Lied Lady Arianna Trevelyan, former mage of Ostwick circle and runaway apostate. “Barista.”

“Well, Rayla Hannlin, Barista of Skyhold Café” Josephine said, taking Rayla's hand with a smile that made her stomach flip “It is good to meet you properly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What am I doing? I don't know, but as it turns out, I can't write 500 words of a coffee shop AU without it turning into a political drama, so here we are. 
> 
> Glad to have you along for the ride.


	2. Drinks

Rayla’s first impression of The Herald’s rest was quite correct; it was an establishment she could not afford on her income as barista at Skyhold. The interior was all rich polished wood and soft lighting, with individual booths upholstered in luxurious dark fabric. There was a live musician tuning her instrument somewhere in the back, and Rayla really hoped that Josephine didn’t expect her to stay long after her one drink was finished. Josephine, with the ease of long practice, led them to a booth tucked out of the way, and sat down.

“Ambassador to the inquisition, you said?” Rayla asked as she slid into the other side of the booth “Quite a title. How did that happen?”

Josephine smiled “Sister Leliana approached me. We had been acquainted for quite some time, and when the opportunity came, I leapt at it. It has proved to be quite the challenge, for better or for worse.”

“Mostly for better, I hope!”

“I certainly like to think so.” Josephine said “But, politics are always complicated. Politicking in the midst of a crisis such as this? Even moreso.”

“I can imagine” Rayla said. She couldn’t, really, but it seemed like the appropriate response. “What does the inquisition need an ambassador for, if you don’t mind me asking? Surely you could use the chantry’s influence, for something like this.”

“Ah” Josephine said, with the air of someone who had explained the same thing many times before “We are not actually an arm of the chantry, so to speak. While it is true we were founded on Justinia’s orders, the Inquisition was designed as an inquest to chantry law and policies, which it cannot do while under the chantry authority. Technically, we are an independent political body, and have been since Justinia's declaration. We even have our own embassy grounds, here in Haven.”

“An independent political body led by the left and right hands of the divine, one of whom is a seeker of truth.” Said Rayla flatly.

Josephine spread her hands, conceding the point. “I am not going to pretend we are an impartial party.” She said “The chantry does seek to resolve this conflict as quickly as possible, as we all do, and has granted us use of two of its pre-eminent members for as long as the Inquisition lasts. However, the chantry has no input in our day-to-day functions, and the divine herself has sworn to accept our final ruling. The clerics may not like our conclusions, but they are bound by their own law to accept them”

At that moment, a waiter interrupted them to take their orders. Josephine, without hesitation, ordered a polysyllabic Antivan brandy. Rayla asked for a glass of a wine she recognised on the menu as being one of her mother’s favourites. Josephine raised an eyebrow

“Cullen was not mistaken, when he said you were from the free marches” She said “I do not think I have ever seen someone from outside the Marches cultivate a taste for Silvaner.”

Rayla had almost, almost fled as Josephine said the first half of her sentence, but relaxed as she finished. “I don’t often find them down here” She said honestly. She had not found the means or occasion to go to many bars, since arriving in the mountains of Ferelden. “I had to take the opportunity when I saw it on the menu.”

“A taste of home for us both, then.” Josephine’s smile was quieter somehow, more personable than the one she flashed when ordering coffee. “I confess to favouring this establishment for its above average selection of brandies.”

“How did you end up in Ferelden then?” Rayla asked her “You are certainly not a native yourself.”

“I am from Antiva, it is true.” Josephine said “But I have not been for many years. Before the Inquisition, I served as Ambassador to Orlais. I was quite good at it, if I may flatter myself. In the Inquisition, however, I have found a calling. The chance to make peace across all of Thedas? I could hardly have asked for a worthier cause.”

Rayla couldn’t help but smile at her enthusiasm, and before she thought better of it she said “And how did someone as lovely and selfless as you and up in Orlesian politics, Lady Montilyet?”

To her immense gratification (and also somewhat to her shock) Josephine blushed, stammered and looked away as the waiter came back with their drinks. This was foolish, Rayla knew. Befriending, let alone courting anyone was a dangerous proposition for someone in her position. A member of the Inquisition’s inner circle, even more so. But, hiding her grin behind the rim of her wineglass, she could not bring herself to care.

 

***

 

“Well” Josephine said, as they left the Herald’s Rest some hours later, her cheeks a fetching red. “I must confess, it was good to have drinks with you. I have missed my old staff at the Antivan embassy; the inquisition is lovely, but there is no-one to review with after a long day.”

Rayla laughed, pleasantly tipsy. If she had the names to attach people to half the stories that Josephine had told, she was reasonably sure she could use the blackmail to start her own city-state. “It was my genuine pleasure, Josephine.” She said.

“It was not my intention to take up this much of your time” Josephine said, biting her lip “I seem to have quite stolen your evening from you.”

“I wouldn’t have accepted your offer if I wasn’t willing to stay out” Rayla said, buttoning up her second hand woolen coat. The faded grey garment was piling, and one of the pockets was torn, and it was slightly too large in the shoulders, but it was warm and cheap. The buttons, however, required slightly more attention tipsy than sober. It looked shabby next to Josephine’s fine blue pea coat, brass buttons glinting in the street-lights, but Josephine was certainly too kind to comment.

“I enjoyed myself thoroughly.” Rayla said as she finished with her buttons and looked back up at Josephine. “Besides, spending time with such a beautiful woman is never a waste of an evening.”

Josephine smiled at her, and Rayla for the first time regarded the butterflies in her stomach with hope, rather than dread.

“In that case, we will have to find time to do it again” Josephine said.

Rayla swung her bag over her shoulder “I think I’d like that.” She said. “Otherwise, I’ll see you tomorrow morning?”

  
“Until tomorrow, then.” Josephine said, and for the first time in many months, Rayla found she had something to look forward to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would not expect updates this frequent for the rest of time, but I felt the bug today, what can I say. 
> 
> Also, I apologise for the fact that this was basicly an exposition chapter.


	3. Contributions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rayla helps the Inquisition along a little bit

                “Was that you?” Josephine asked.

                “I’m not sure I know what we’re talking about.” Rayla replied, sliding into the chair across from Josephine at her regular table at the window. It had been almost two and a half months since their initial evening out, and they had begun to fall into a routine. Nearly every day before Josephine left for the Embassy in the morning, and after the morning rush, Rayla would accept her invitation to sit beside her for an hour or so to talk over coffee. Occasionally, after her work was done, Josephine would come back to the café in the evening. Once a week in the evenings, schedules permitting, they would go out for a proper date. Rayla had to admit that it was nice, even if she had no idea where it was going.

                “The first of clan Lavellan approached us directly, yesterday” Josephine said. “He made his introductions, and informed us that he had made the arrangements necessary to speak on behalf of the clans at the hearings. Did you convince him of that?”

                “Oh!” Rayla said, and then thought about it “He was here to just observe and report back to the clans, initially. They were worried about getting involved with the Chantry directly, since they’ve always been pretty openly opposed to chantry policy, and vice-versa. He wasn’t sure if you’d arrest him outright, let alone listen to him, if he came to you.”

                “He was that concerned?” Josephine said in shock

                Rayla nodded.

                “I told him that your intentions were more or less aligned, that you weren’t actually part of the chantry, and he asked where he could find you.” Rayla said, blowing steam across her tea. “I’m glad he’s going to help.”

                There was an entire wealth of information that Rayla was omitting from that abridged story. That he had trusted Rayla largely because he had recognised the mana humming beneath her skin when they brushed fingers exchanging change, for example, was not something she thought Josephine had to know. That he had assumed that she was a spy for the rebel mages, and that his questions were about whether or not the inquisition could have a real impact for ‘people such as ourselves’ likewise. That Rayla’s response was that she thought the inquisition might be the last, best hope they had of actually affecting change in the Chantry’s treatment of mages. The fact that she was quite sure the embassy could not have held the Dalish ambassador against his will if they tried. That she would not have sent him into the belly of the beast if she thought otherwise.

                “ _Well_ ” Josephine said. Rayla looked back up at her to find a secret pleased smile creeping across her face “You _are_ quite remarkable.”

                Rayla blushed, and looked back down at her tea, fussing with the handle of the mug. “Flatterer.”

                “It is true, whether you admit it or not” Josephine continued. “You are very kind, and quite persuasive besides. Lavvellan is going to be a tremendous asset to the inquisition.”

She looked at Rayla, serious all of a sudden, and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper “Did you know that the templars _kidnapped_ mage children from Dalish clans?”

                Rayla’s mind jumped to an eight year old girl, barefoot, bloody-nosed and snarling, damning the chantry in stuttered elven, who the Templars introduced as Beatrix but who insisted her name was Ghenya all the years Rayla knew her.

                “I had no idea” Rayla said, trying to banish the memory of the same girl, fourteen years old, being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to be made tranquil, of the curses echoing down the hallways no longer in the  elven tongue, but invoking her old gods all the same. “That’s horrible.”

                “Isn’t it just?” Josephine continued, mercifully not noticing Rayla’s brief lapse into memory “and now, we have both the records and testimony to prove it.” She took a sip of her coffee with a look of fierce satisfaction. “Even if his testimony did not add anything to the official records, which I strongly suspect it will, his tale will be truly damming in the court of public opinion. I cannot imagine the circles’ reputation recovering after we are through with them, and this is just another piece of fuel to the fire.”

                “So.” Josephine lowered her mug gently to pin Rayla with a mock glare “I insist you take some of the credit. Your work, whether that is how you think of it or not, is something to be proud of.”

                Rayla smiled down at the mug in her hands, not quite able to stifle the blush in her cheeks.

                “Anything I can do to help. I believe in the inquisition too, Josephine.” Rayla said.

                “You have done more than enough, especially as one who is not even formally part of the Inquisition.” Josephine said, and then sighed. “Besides,” She said wryly “Unless you have a former circle mage hidden somewhere under your apron I cannot think of anything else at the moment.”

                Joesphine smiled, self-mocking at Rayla, who found she suddenly couldn’t move. Josephine’s smile dropped off her face in the split-second it took her to notice the fact that Rayla had frozen, deer-in-the-headlights in her chair.

                “You-“Josephine cut herself off, darted a glance at the rest of the café, and leaned in, pitching her voice not to carry “Rayla, _are_ you hiding an apostate?”

                Rayla met her eyes, unable to form words. Apparently this was all she needed to do, because Josephine inhaled sharply, and her hands rose to cover her mouth in shock. Josephine stared at her for a moment, struck silent herself. Then she blinked, and shook her head to gather herself before leaning across the table to grip Rayla’s fingers in her own.

                “Rayla this- would it be possible to meet them?” Josephine’s voice was still barely a whisper, but there was sincerity in her eyes as she asked. “This could change everything, there has not been a single circle mage that had approached the inquisition, if they would speak with us-“

                “Josephine” Rayla interrupted, squeezing her fingers “This would be incredibly dangerous for any mage, you have to understand that.”

                “Of course!” Josephine said, her mind already clearly whirring “They would need protection, possibly lodging. Wherever they are currently would more than likely not remain secure once they are exposed, and maker only knows this will be the centre of the public eye. We would not put your friend in any unnecessary danger, Rayla.”

                “There will probably be conditions” Rayla warned

                Josephine nodded without any hesitation “That is to be expected” She said seriously. “I will not ask how often you see them, but when you do, ask them to compose a list of stipulations. They will give it to you, you will give the list to me, and we can progress from there.”

                “Would it be possible to see where they would be staying before asking them to make a decision?”

                “Of course” Josephine said “I could take you on a tour as soon as-“ She paused to dig in her briefcase, emerging with a heavily post-it noted weekly planner. Rayla watched as she ran her finger down a veritable rainbow of colours highlighted in fifteen minute intervals over the whole week. She paused on a block of green in the middle of next Thursday. “I cannot imagine this briefing will take longer than half an hour, but the governor insisted on booking two and a half; I can take you through the building that afternoon. Will that be satisfactory?”

                Rayla craned her neck, staring at the indicated time. “I’ll have to swap shifts, but I think I can make that work” she said.

                “Wonderful.” Jospehine said, penciling in simply ‘tour’ in the middle of the green block before snapping it shut and putting it back into her bag “I must- I must inform the rest of the inquisition, they will all be so relieved” She stood up, already buttoning her coat “You cannot imagine how happy I am Rayla, truly. This is the news we have been hoping to hear for _months_ I-“ she cut herself off, and dipped down to give Rayla a quick kiss, breaking off to stare at her face.             

                “Truly.” Josephine said with one hand on Rayla’s cheek “Thank you. This will change everything.”

                Rayla covered Josephine’s hand with her own and squeezed her fingers. “Yeah. I think it really will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Neither of them knows what they're getting into at all, poor them :c
> 
> I'd like to thank everyone whose commented so far! You mean the world to me, and it really encourages me to write. Truly.
> 
> I'd especially like to thank Noholds, who's helping me iron out the Josie romance, and with whom I've had several exchanges about Josephine consisting just of 'she's so-' over and over in the chat.


	4. Conditions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rayla gets the grand tour, and goes over some documents

Thursday arrived far too quickly for Rayla’s comfort. Josephine had been storming in and out of the café all for the past three days, barely with enough time to order a coffee and ask for an update on the situation before she was off again. Apparently, the news of finding a circle mage willing to talk with them was enough to send the Inquisition into a bit of a frenzy in preparation. Rayla wished she found it reassuring. When the day itself came, four thirty rolled crept forwards with absolute unrelenting momentum. At four twenty-five, Rayla signed out, waved goodbye to Cadash at the counter, and gathered her belongings from the back of the café. At four twenty eight, she was waiting on the curb outside, hunched into her coat, bag resting by her feet. She was wearing her better pair of jeans and the bright cobalt scarf Josephine had once wrapped around her shoulders on a whim and refused to take back at the end of the night.

Rayla also had her last three lyrium tablets- still safe in their foil and plastic bubbles- tucked into her back pocket, her fake ID in her inner jacket pocket, and nearly three hundred dollars cash in various hiding places spread across her bag and coat. She checked her phone just as Josephine rounded the corner.

Josephine smiled when she saw her scarf knotted around Rayla’s throat, and Rayla felt a sudden, sharp pang of regret. She threaded her arm through Rayla’s, hand in the crook of her elbow, so they were walking arm in arm. It was so normal it made Rayla want to cry.

“You have everything prepared, then?” Josephine asked, her heels clicking on the pavement.

Rayla nodded “The requests, what to watch out for in the building, all the questions to ask” And a list of all the busses out of Haven in the next twenty four hours. “I’m ready.”

Josephine squeezed her arm, reassuring. “Your friend is being very brave” She said “I am very much looking forward to meeting them.”

“Yeah.” Rayla said “Well. Let’s see what happens tonight, before we go making any promises.”

“I must thank you one more time, before I show you the Inquisition” Josephine said, turning to face Rayla completely. “You have been more help than you know. Truly. Even if this doesn’t work, the Inquisition is grateful for everything you’ve done.” Josephine’s smile was earnest, thankful, and Rayla burrowed further into her scarf instead of replying, letting Josephine’s hand in her elbow lead her along Haven’s steep and narrow streets. They came to a halt quite literally outside the Inquisition’s gates.

The points of a large, wrought iron gate stuck up like teeth against the otherwise fairly modern street, guarding an old ornate divinical building. The building was clearly of chantry design; gilt bronze spiraled around the eves and up licked up the base of the white marble columns, giving the whole building the impression of being ablaze. The double doors were heavy oak, crisscrossed with cold iron, and looked as if they could hold against dragon flame. The remnants of Chantry’s flaming sun were still visible in red paint scrawled across the centre of the portal.

“It’s as old as the Emblemic age” Josephine said “But the interior is quite modern, if drafty. We have just had cameras installed, to the distress of several architectural historians. Rest assured, we are safe as houses.” Josephine waved to the camera in the corner of one of the pillars, before leaning in to press the buzzer on the intercom.

“Josephine Montilyet and Guest Rayla Hannlin” She said into the speaker “Requesting entry.”

“Josie!” Came the voice from the speaker, loud and friendly “Good to see ya. Is my eye playing tricks on me, or is this a personal call?”

“Business, I’m afraid” Josephine said, smiling “Rayla is here with information for the Inquisition.” She paused, and then added “It is good to speak with you as well, Iron Bull.”

“Ah, you work too hard” The voice came back, as the light turned green and the gate swung open “Remember to pop in at visitor registration so we can get you a guest pass. Don’t want you to send any of the boys into a panic.”

“Of course” Josephine said, straightening. She turned to Rayla, already walking through the gates. “The Iron Bull” Josie told her “Is our head of security here. He is manager of a private security firm based out of Orlais, although I understand he hails from Seheron, and his crew from all over Thedas.”

Rayla looked away from the heavy iron gates as they creaked shut behind her. She tried and failed not to find it ominous. Instead, she looked towards the massive sunburst on the doors ahead as Josephine shouldered one of them open. She held it for Rayla, who ducked under her arm.

“Lady Montilyet” greeted a man inside the door. Rayla could make out a bulletproof vest, an earpiece and a Tevene accent “Chief said you had a visitor with you?”

“Lieutenant Aclassi!” Josephine greeted him “Will you be doing visitor services, today?”

He nodded to her. “’Course. Right this way.” At a small desk beside the door, he took Rayla’s picture and printed her face and name onto a small plastic pass which she clipped to one side of her jacket.

“Thank you” Josephine said as she folded her coat over one arm. Rayla elected to simply unbutton hers and let it hang from her shoulders. Josephine took the lead once more as they made their way deeper into the building, steps echoing in the cavernous hallways.

“This was the divine’s familial residence, once” Josephine informed Rayla, as she paused to look at a painting on the wall. “Past security, there are old rooms we use for entertaining and as public offices. Beyond that, a small courtyard and the kitchens. Personal quarters are farther back, in the old apartments.”

Rayla turned away from the landscape of sprawling hills and a wandering Dalish caravan. “How many people are living here?”

“Seventeen” Josephine replied promptly. “Your friend will make eighteen, if it is decided it would be better for them to live here for the duration.”

“So many?” Rayla said, picking up the pace again “I never would have guessed.”

“Initially, there were only the three of us, but we’ve accumulated quite the entourage.” She started ticking off on her fingers “The first addition was Cullen, as he had nowhere to stay in Haven. Another pair of Templars, from different circles. A witness from Kirkwall, who is known to have been quite close to the apostate Anders. A cook, a custodian and the property caretaker. The Iron Bull and his entire team, of course. And as of last week, First Lavellan.” She hesitated “The First of Lavellan? Master Lavellan? I confess to not knowing Dalish honorifics as extensively as I would like.”

Rayla shrugged. “I call him ‘Veranthis, your muffin is ready’, personally”

Josephine stared at her, clearly fighting amusement “Yes, I suppose you would.” She sent one last, personal smile Rayla’s way before pushing open the last door.

This was clearly the base of the inquisition’s operation. A massive boardroom table sat in the centre of the room, covered in heaps of paper, which in turn were covered in different colours of highlighter notation and post-its. On the wall opposite the door was a whiteboard the size of a mattress, with everything (at Rayla’s cursory glance) from autopsy reports to chant verses to photocopies from circle textbooks. Rayla recognised one of those from a chapter on possession; if she recalled correctly, it was less instruction on how to avoid it as it was theatrical warnings of apostasy interspersed with graphic images of the remains of abominations. She pulled her gaze away from the wall to that find Leliana, Cassandra and Cullen had gathered on the other side of the table in anticipation of their arrival.

“It is true then?” Cassandra said without any preamble “There is a circle mage willing to talk to us?”

Rayla nodded. Cassandra studied her for a moment, eyes hard as steel, before nodding sharply.

“Good. Shall we review the terms?” Cassandra retrieved a sheaf of paper from Leliana, as Rayla pulled her phone from her pocket.

“Your contact had a number unusual requests, no?” Leliana said, as Cassandra spread the sheets out on the table in front of them. “Thankfully, they were not too troublesome. We have had to modify them to be part of a legal document, but only very few of them were changed in spirit. Shall I begin?” She asked, looking up at Rayla “You may check them against your list as we go.”

“Alright.” Rayla said.

Leliana tapped the papers against the table, before clearing her throat and beginning to read.

“The undersigned has agreed to be of assistance to the Inquisition subject to the following conditions, the voiding of which will result in the breaking of contract. The conditions are as follows:”

“The undersigned is to be permitted to maintain lodgings and employment outside the inquisition. The lodgings provided will be equipped such that the undersigned may not be locked inside them by an outside party, but may lock themselves inside if so inclined. They will not be prevented from leaving the grounds unless there is an immediate risk to their physical well being. They will not to be coerced into performing services of a magical nature for any member of the inquisition, although may choose to do so of their own free will.” Leliana flipped a page, and continued reading.

“They are not to be left alone with a former Templar at any time for any reason. They are not to be denied food or water for any extended period of time for any reason. They are not to be physically restrained at any time, during questioning or otherwise. They are not to be physically struck or beaten at any time for any reason. They are not to be drugged at any time for any reason –we have added an addendum here; except in the case of medical emergencies-. They are not to be denied contact with individuals outside the inquisition. They are to be compensated fairly for their time and assistance to the inquisition-“

“Hang on” Rayla interjected “That wasn’t on the list.”

“I know” Leliana said, looking up from the contract. “That is standard on all inquisition documents. It is not a lot of money; a small stipend we pay our workers for their time, especially if they must take time off work to give their testimony. If I may continue?”

Rayla nodded, and Leliana returned to the document

“They are not to be turned over to Chantry custody upon completion of her work with the Inquisition. They are not to be killed or otherwise silenced upon the completion of their work with the inquisition. And finally-“ Leliana flipped a page, to the final stipulation on a page all by itself. “If the Inquisition’s final recommendation to the Chantry is to re-establish the circles, the undersigned will be informed with enough advance notice to permit them to flee the country.” She lowered the pages and handed the entire document to Rayla.

Rayla took it the way she might have taken a viper.

“It should be said” Josephine said as Rayla scanned the document, comparing it to the original list she had written on her phone, searching for each clause one at a time. “That the presence of most of these is unnecessary; we would never have even considered violating these conditions. This contract is just written proof.”

Rayla straightened up from the table, depositing her phone in her pocket. “What’s the next step, then?”

“What happens next” Cullen said, pushing himself off the back wall “Is you contact your apostate and bring them here. We all shake hands, give them the grand tour. Once they're convinced we’re not going to kill them in their sleep, they sign that contract, and…” He trailed off as Rayla uncapped a pen between her teeth and scrawled her signature on the dotted line.

The room was silent as she dropped the contract back to the table. She stood up, feet apart, chin up, eyes straight, hands behind her back as if this were a bunk inspection.

“My name” She said, trying to avoid looking at the shocked look on Josephine’s face out of the corner of her eye, staring instead at the dawning understanding on the other side of the table. “Is Arianna Trevelyan. Until a year and a half ago, I was an enchanter of the Ostwick Circle.” Josephine gasped softly beside her, and she wished this didn’t feel like a betrayal. “I have been living in Haven for the past eight months,” She continued, and then shut her eyes and tried to prevent the way she could feel herself cringing. “And I’m here to offer my services to the Inquisition.”

 ****  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A double-length chapter for you all to start your weekend with! Things are happening, I got to write some about Thedosian Baroque architecture and make up the divine equivalent of 'papal', it's all very exciting.  
> (Also, eight people are subscribing to this story?? Wild. Thanks y'all :')


	5. Confrontations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of secrets.

 

The door opened and shut again with a pair of polite clicks, and Arianna looked up to see Josephine standing in front of the bench she was sitting on. She had been asked to wait outside of Josephine’s office while the four core members of the inquisition had a discussion, and had spent the last fifteen minutes with her head in her hands in a state of near-constant anxiety. She met Josephine’s eyes and wondered how much of that showed on her face. Wordlessly, Josephine reached out and plucked the visitor ID pass from Arianna’s coat. Arianna didn't move. Josephine stared at it for a moment.

“We will have to get this remade, you know.”

“I’m sorry” Arianna said miserably.

“Why Rayla, of all names?” Josephine asked, voice and face still carefully guarded.

Arianna shrugged uncomfortably. “It was the name on the first driver’s licence I found for sale. I can’t even drive, actually.”

“Ah.” Josephine bounced the ID card against the palm of her hand, before sighing, and sitting down next to Arianna on the bench. She had lost both her overcoat and her blazer, at some point, and was now in a simple gold blouse and a pair of dress slacks. It occurred to Arianna that it was now nearly eight in the evening, and that she was the reason the entire Inquisition was working late.

“I wish I could have told you.” Arianna said “I hated lying to you but-“

“That much, I quite understand” Josephine interrupted. “You said yourself that this was a dangerous endeavour, but-“

“I would have told you eventually” Arianna said “After the Inquisition was over, probably, depending on how-”

“Rayla- Arianna, I do not care that you kept this a secret!” Josephine exclaimed

“I- You don’t?” Arianna said, completely taken aback.

“No!” Josephine added vehemently. “But Arianna, this contract- did you truly think so little of us?”

“What?” Arianna said

“Is that what you thought the Inquisition was capable of? Did you think we would keep you captive here?” Josephine continued “That we would starve you? That we would _beat_ you?” Her voice cracked slightly, over the last two words “That we would _kill you_ when we were finished with you? Did you think so little of us?” She met Arianna’s eyes, confusion and hurt written all over her face “Do you truly think so little of _me_?”

Josephine looked so wounded, as she finished, so vulnerable, somehow so small that Arianna felt as though she had received a blow to the stomach. She reached out to her, across the suddenly huge gulf of space between them on the bench

“Josie, I-“

“There you are.” Arianna jerked away from Josephine as Cassandra came around the corner. “We do not have quarters for you prepared.” She said, seemingly unaware of what she had interrupted “We were not expecting the mage, er, you, rather, until tomorrow at the earliest.”

Arianna darted a glance beck to Josephine, who was busying herself with documents on her lap, studiously not looking at either of them.

“That’s fine” Arianna said, standing up from the bench. “I’ll get going, then.”

Cassandra frowned at her as she began buttoning up her coat “Do you require an escort to your home?”

“No. I’ll be fine.” Arianna said

“Are you sure?” Cassandra asked “We could send a member of the security team to accompany you.”

“I’ll be _fine_.” Arianna repeated “I’ve been living here for nearly a year. I don’t want anyone following me home.”

Josephine hitched a little breath behind her, and Arianna wondered if she was remembering that Arianna only ever left her at street corners, and never ever once allowed Josephine to walk her to her door. Arianna re-tied her scarf, tucking the ends into the collar of her coat, doing the last button up over top. She kept her fingers there, bouncing slightly over the knot in the scarf Cassandra frowned at her, brows pulling together ever so slightly.

“You do not trust us.” She stated

“No” Arianna admitted. “Not really. I trust Josephine. I don’t trust the rest of you.” Cassandra crossed her arms at her, and her frown seemed to double in strength.

“Really, that is unnecessary, none of us are going to harm you-“

“Did you know” Arianna said “That Knight-Captain Cullen visited the Ostwick circle about three years ago? I was assigned to be his helper, during the duration of his stay. Do you know what he said, to our knight-commander, before he left?”

Cassandra looked bewildered at the change in topic, so Arianna plowed on before she lost her nerve.

“He said” Arianna continued, looking Cassandra dead in the face and trying to ignore the way her leg was jumping, at the voice in her head screaming at her not to tell Cassandra anything that might get her in trouble. “He said, while I was standing right behind him, like it was something he said all the time, he said ‘You are too soft on your mages here, Tobirus. You must remember, they are not people, like you and me’.”

She bent down and retrieved her bag. “And you have him as your expert witness on conditions in the circles.”

“I had no idea that Cullen had ever believed such things” Josephine said in shock

“Yeah.” Ariana said “Well. He’s not alone in believing them, either.” She pulled her bag over her shoulders, patting it to make sure everything was still in place before turning to go.

“Arianna-” Josephine said, grabbing her hand. Arianna turned around to look at her. Her neat black bun was coming undone slightly, and the curl she pulled on when she was thinking sat nearly flat against her cheek. She looked like she was going to say something, but swallowed it, before squeezing Arianna’s fingers lightly meeting her eyes. “Safe travels.”

Arianna swallowed the lump in her throat as she squeezed back. “Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all thought Josephine would be mad because she was hiding that she was a MAGE, nono, that's not NEARLY sad enough. 
> 
> This shorter chapter brought to you by me ignoring a presentation I have on Thursday.


	6. Agreements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trouble brews

 

 

                “Did you know” said Veranthis Lavellan as he handed back his plate over the counter “That apparently the inquisition has found a witness from within the circle itself?”

                The sounds of Skyhold clanked quietly around them, the afternoon just turning into evening. Aside from Lavellan, there were only two other customers in the café, both engrossed in their laptops. Lavellan had, quite unusually, elected to have his lunch in the café, and had waited until there was no-one in line or waiting on drink orders to bring up his dishes. Arianna raised her eyebrows at him. He stared back at her, Dalish tattoos stark blue against his face.

                “Really?” She asked.

                “That’s certainly what I’ve heard.” His Dalish accent rounded the words, but there was unmistakable iron in them still.

                She took his plate, and as her fingers brushed his, he sent a tiny little pulse of magic up her wrist. It wasn’t something that any non-mage would have noticed as more than a static shock, a tiny little radar ping, which she could feel her own magic respond to in kind. She scowled at him. He continued to stare at her, completely inscrutably.

                “Not that you’d know anything about that, I’m sure.” He said. She bent over the counter, leaning closer to him.

                “Look” She said, voice so quiet in nearly got swallowed by the humming of the refrigerator “I don’t know what you’re trying to do here but-“

                “If there was” he interrupted, and dropped his voice to as quiet as Arianna’s was “I would like to speak with them. As soon as possible.” He was still staring at her, but there was desperation in his eyes now, and she wondered how she had missed it before. His tattoos pulled tight around his eyes, wrapping around his half-shaved head, and his fingers were clenched on the surface of the counter.

                “If there was a witness from the circle” Arianna said slowly “What did you want to talk with them about?”

                “I think that what I have to say to them would be best discussed between the two of us in private.” He said firmly.

                “Well” Arianna started, glancing at the door to make sure no-one else had come in “If that were the case, I might suggest that the ambassador would probably know a time. She’s in and out of here all the time, I’ve seen her organize meetings for the inquisition before. I can’t imagine that would be a problem for her.”

                “And how quickly do you think she could do that?”

                Arianna thought a moment, but before she could speak again, the bell on the door rang, and a pair of arguing men entered the café. The older man seemed to have won this round, as the younger sat down at a table to one side of the door, apparently short of breath. Th older manwalked to the chash register with the sort of attitude that suggested he was not above yelling at those he considered below him.

                Arianna sent one last look at Lavellan before rushing to the front of the bar. She saw him leave out of the corner of her eye as she greeted the customer at the front, and waved to him as cheerfully as she would have any other afternoon, but cold dark dread settled in her stomach, and it stuck there, hollow and shivery for the rest of the day.

*

                Later that night, as Arianna was brushing her teeth in the cracked sink in her apartment, her phone buzzed from the floor beside her mattress. Given that only three people had that number, she was reasonably sure it was Josephine.

                (The other two were her employer at Skyhold, who had never used it, and the elf who had found her sleeping under a bridge when she had first arrived in Haven. She had given Arianna, among other things, her fake ID, a hot meal, a hole-in-the-wall apartment that accepted rent in cash, and the phone itself. ‘Just in case, yeah?’ She had said, pressing the cracked screen into Arianna’s hand ‘things ever go tits up again, beep me you got it? Can’t promise you nothing, but at least you won’t be up shit creek without a phone.’ Arianna treasured the phone and the number, cracked screen and all, even if the red icon next to the contact entered simply as ‘jenny’ had never sent a single message.)

                Her phone had buzzed twice more before she spat her toothpaste out in the sink and sat down on her bare mattress. Josephine was a serial multi-part texter, and even Arianna’s warnings about the limitations of her prepaid, intended-for-tourists SIM card had not managed to curb her entirely of the habit.

                ‘Hello!’ the first text read, ‘I was wondering if you were free tomorrow night after we finish up our discussion. One of the other members of the group would like to discuss something with you’

                ‘He wishes me to emphasize how imperative that the two of you have this discussion sooner rather than later, although he has thus far declined to give me any details about what exactly it is that he wishes to discuss.’

                ‘Also, would you permit me to walk with you from Skyhold tomorrow? I find my work is consuming more of my time, and I admit to missing our walks through the city. I can meet with you when you get off shift at four ‘o clock.’

                Arianna smiled at the light of her phone, and typed back.

                ‘Yes to all of the above. See you at 4.’

                She hesitated a moment, before adding ‘looking forward to it.’ And hitting send

                Josephine’s typing notification came up almost immediately, and proceeded to stay there for several minutes. Then they disappeared entirely for a moment, before Josephine’s text response arrived, which read simply

:)

Arianna smiled to herself as she turned her phone off for the night. Whatever Veranthis needed to talk to her about was sure to be panic-inducing tomorrow, but she took a great deal of comfort in the thought that whatever happened, the two of them had the entire inquisition as backup. She also took comfort, and, if she was being honest with herself, a fierce bright joy in the fact that Josephine cared enough about her to send several minutes deliberating over a simple smile in a text message.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to my two group-mates who dropped the course we were supposed to give a presentation in together without telling me, making me do a three person project on my own in two days. Also to my prof, who was surprisingly sympathetic about the whole thing.
> 
> Also, here is a chapter. In light of increasing cameos, I feel as though I should make a 'Sirs not appearing in this fic announcement'. The following Inquisition characters will NOT (unless I can think of something that absolutely, positively needs them) be in this fic: Solas, Vivienne, Cole, Blackwall, Dagna. And Adaar, probably, although if I can find a way, an adaar feature briefly. 
> 
> Everyone else is up in the air for now.


	7. Communications

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arianna discoverers what exactly has put Lavellan in a panic.

The next day, Arianna didn’t even get through security before she saw Veranthis was waiting for her. He was walking back and forth on the other side of the security desk, a staff clearly of Dalish make gripped in his white-knuckled hands. Arianna wondered if her own was still buried off the highway in the free marches where she had left it.

“He has been pacing all day” Josephine told her in an undertone as he signed her in. “Do you have any idea what he wishes to speak to you about?”

“He hasn’t told you anything?” Arianna asked her.

Josephine shook her head. “Simply that he need to speak with you as soon as possible. Nothing more.”

Lavellan’s expression of utter relief when they rounded the corner was enough to give Arianna pause, but Josephine was walking behind her and Veranthis was coming up to meet her, so she kept going.

“Are we secure here?” Was the first thing he said to either of them.

“All of Skyhold is secure.” Josephine said.

“Can anyone else hear us here.” He clarified “What I have to say is for her ears only.”

Josephine considered this briefly, and then nodded, leading them back to the offices of the building. She opened the door to a room filled with boxes, and dressed with furniture covered in plastic. On top of one of the desks sat a stack of paper covered in red pen marks and a laptop case with ‘Bianca’ lovingly engraved on the top. Someone had somehow managed to wedge an overstuffed armchair behind the desk.

“Master Tethras has taken up residence here; we pretend not to know this where he retreats when Cassandra is in a temper.” Josephine explained, holding the door open. “I am quite certain that Leliana has attempted to bug this room in order to monitor his communications, and I am equally certain that Varric has found and disabled each and every one of them. I understand it has become something of a game between the two of them.”  
Veranthis had been examining the room as Josephine spoke, and nodded as she finished.

“Excuse us for a moment” He said to Josephine, before pulling Arianna into the room and shutting the door behind them. He cast some sort of a barrier over the door behind them, translucent green and shimmering, before he turned to address Arianna.

“What” He said without any more preamble “Have you heard out of Redcliffe”

“Out of Redcliffe?” Arianna asked, totally blind-sided “Only what’s on the news, and not much of that, recently. Why?”

“Your contact in Redcliffe, what are they saying?” Veranthis clarified

“What contact?” she said

“Whoever sent you from the main rebellion! When’s the last time you heard from them!”

“Veranthis I don’t know what you’re talking about! I haven’t so much as spoken with a mage other than you in nearly a year. Not since I left Ostwick.” Arianna pleaded “I thought it would be safer to be alone than to try to join the main force in Redcliffe! I’m not part of the mage rebels, I never have been, I haven’t ever heard anything from Redcliffe!”

“You aren’t?” he asked in alarm “You decided to join the Inquisition without the support of the rest of your people?”

Arianna shrugged uncomfortably.

“Then you are either very brave or very stupid.” He said bluntly. “And I still don’t know what’s happening in Redcliffe.”

“Why” Arianna asked “Do you think something’s happening in Redcliffe?”

Varanthis sighed, and took a seat on one of the boxes, resting his staff lightly against one shoulder “We Dalish” He said “Are not stupid. We are not simple. We are not ignorant of shemlen affairs. If we were, we would have died long ago. We know that, however this Inquisition goes, it will affect us greatly. Any decision you make on magic does. So we send emissaries. Spies, might be the better word. I am here to report back to the clans just as much as I am here to influence the inquisition itself. I was not the only one sent, only the sole emissary sent to the inquisition. There are two others” He held up two fingers “Din’nan, hunter of Raleferin, sent to join the seceded Templars, and Hawenn, the Second of Syllanal, sent to the mage rebellion. We update each other three to four times a day, to co-ordinate our efforts and ensure that we are not taken by surprise.” He let his fingers drop again to drum on his knee. and the nervous feeling Arianna had gotten from his panic the day before returned with a vengeance.

“Four days ago, Hawenn reported that something had happened that panicked Grand Enchanter Fiona. Less than twelve hours after that, she reported that the grand enchanter announced that they should all prepare to move again. Hawenn also told us that half the upper command had disappeared, and that there were strangely dressed men in a ship in the harbour. Since then” Veranthis shook his head. “Nothing. Not a call, not a text, not an email. We’ve been trying to reach her for the past two days, every way we know and nothing. One of the keepers called in a favour with a former clan member who lived an hour or two outside of Redcliffe, and when they got there, they said that the roads in and out of the city were blocked, by someone other than circle mages.”

“Not Templars?” Arriana asked.

“Not Templars” Veranthis confirmed. "Din’nan said that the main force of Templars is still holed up in northern Orlais; they don’t know anything about what’s happening in Redcliffe, as far as he can tell. You can bet they’d be on the move if they did. No news station’s been able to get anywhere near the town in months, they’ve stopped trying to get cameras in any closer than when Fiona makes official statements. No suprise we haven't heard anything from them."

Arianna nodded, and chewed her lip.

“So" She said "there’s been no official statement, although whatever happened came with enough warning to for Fiona to announce they were probably moving It’s not the actions of the Templars, although it has enough power to establish roadblocks. It’s blocking communications in some way or another, and all we know about the source is that there was an odd ship in the harbour.”

Veranthis nodded grimly. “And if you know nothing about it, and they haven’t in fact sent an emissary to the inquisition at all, it does beg the question” he said, standing up and moving to dissolve the barrier over the door “What in the name of Elgar’nan’s teeth is happening in Redcliffe?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo boy folks, plot is happening. I never thought I'd see the day.
> 
> I think I can probably manage to do twice a week as an update scheduled, sometime on the weekend and then wednesdays/thursdays. I'm not going to put anything in stone, so don't set your watch by this, but I think I can do that. I've also updated the work summery, in case anyone cares about that.


	8. Redcliffe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the inquisition gets two accounts full of no information about Redcliffe, and one account chalk full of information about Redcliffe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh ey, just as a heads up, I'm gonna be touching on dissociation briefly in this chapter. If it makes you uncomfortable, skip the first 4 or so paragraphs.

Lavellan doesn’t tell the inquisition for three days.

In those three days, Arianna called into work sick and refused to leave the Inquisition grounds. The only exception was briefly that first night in order to pack an overnight bag. On that occasion allowed Cassandra to escort her to an intersection only two blocks away from her apartment and back, far closer than any inquisition member had gotten before.

While she stayed at the inquisition’s headquarters, she gave accounts of her time in the circle to Leliana four times on four consecutive days, including the evening Lavellan had spoken with her. They are gentle interrogations, true, open questions and no right answers, but she left each one feeling shaken, one step removed from anyone who actually experienced and lived to talk about those things. After one of them, Iron Bull (who turned out to be a 9 foot, one-eyed quanari) found her standing in the middle of the kitchen staring at one of the cabinets. He led her to one of the couches, sat her down, and gently talked her back.

When she checked her phone, she found it had been nearly two hours since her session with Leliana had ended. She had almost no memory of the intervening time.

Bull waved her off when she tried to thank him, asked her to take it easy, with the Inquisition.

“We’ve only got one of you” He’d said “You need to take care of yourself, too.”

But now, three days had passed and Lavellan was growing increasingly distraught. All his efforts, as far as Arianna could tell, had been unable to reach his friend in Redcliffe. He had called the whole of the inner circle of the inquisition to have a meeting on the third day, late in the evening.

The Iron Bull was already sitting, elbows on knees, on an armchair in one of the common rooms of the inquisition’s headquarters. Also present, aside from Arianna, was Cassandra, sitting stiffly on a wooden chair and Josephine, perched on the seat of the couch. Varric, the author whose room she had invaded with Lavellan two days prior was lounging on the same couch. He looked up from his phone and winked at Arianna, before returning to whatever he was doing on the screen. Lavellan himself was pacing again, stopping to peek through the slats of the blinds on the window, the hallway outside the door, or his glare at his phone as he walked.

“Our apologies” Leliana said, finally coming into the room with Cullen “We were held up on our way back. Traffic was horrendous.” She immediately took up position on the empty couch on the other side of the coffee table, whereas Cullen elected to lean against the wall on one side of the doorway.

“Right” Lavellen nodded sharply, before turning to face them “What does anyone know about Redcliffe.”

“Redcliffe?” Cullen said “The town north of here the mages are occupying? Practically nothing.”

“Bullshit!” Lavellan yelled, and Arianna recoiled in her seat

"You’re the bloody inquisition!" He continued "The left and right hands of the Divine! You’re her bloody head of intelligence! Don’t tell me that you-”

“Hey, whoa” Varric interjected, hands raised placatingly “Beanpole. Slow down a minute and tell us what’s going on here.”

Lavellan did, in fact, stop at Varric’s request. He also planted his staff on the floor, ready to cast, an action that went unnoticed only by Josephine.

“A little less than a week ago” He said. “I lost contact with a… Friend. In Redcliffe. The day before, she had told me that Grand Enchanter Fiona was panicked about something, and a strange ship was in harbour. I asked someone to check up on her two days later, they found the barricades and roadblocks manned by someone other than the rebel mages.”

Varric considered this “Yeah, ok, actually objection rescinded. You can keep freaking out now.”

“I’m not-!”

“How many days, exactly?” Leliana interrupted. She was leaning forwards, practically off her chair, but for all her apparent interest her face was still stone unreadable.

“Five.” Lavellen replied “Five days ago. Around noon on Thursday.”

Lelianna nodded. “I received similar reports, on that morning.”

She turned to Arianna “Have you heard anything more?”

“I’m not-“

“She’s not part of the larger rebellion” Lavellan interrupted her “She’s not had any contact with them. She knows as little as the rest of us.”

Leliana shook her head grimly. “There was precious little information coming out of the town to begin with but this silence…” She shook her head “Nothing good is happening in Redcliffe, I fear.”

Just then, the intercom blared to life “Chief” Came Krem’s voice over the speakers “I need a hand with this one; visitor won’t take a hint, and I can’t leave the desk.”

“Yeah ok, gimmie a sec” Bull said. There was a brief pause as all nine feet of the Iron Bull unfolded to stand upright in the small sitting room.

“On second thought” Krem said again “Bring the commander too. Visitor’s carrying a staff.”

Cullen pushed himself off the wall “What’s his business here?”

“Dunno” Krem said. “Said his name was-“

There was a brief scuffle on the other end of the line .

“Hello!” another voice greeted them “I am terribly sorry about incapacitating your Lieutenant, but he’ll be fine. I’ll admit I’ve made better first impressions, but I really am exhausted and we haven’t the time to spare on niceties anyway. My name is Dorian Pavus, and I’ve brought from fairly dire news from Redcliffe. There's no delicate way to put this; the rebel mages under Grand Enchanter Fiona have been extorted into a slave contract with the imperuium. Those who tried to resist have been killed, andthe town's been emptied onto a ship bound back for the Imperium come morning. Actions of a fringe group, a bit of a cult really, of the magesterium, taking advantage of your political situation to flex the old conquest muscles again. No official endorsement, although I really doubt the imperium’s about to turn down a free ship full of southern mages, if one presents itself at its door.”

He paused, and for a moment there was no sound in the room except for Dorian’s heavy breathing over the radio. Arianna’s hands, at some point, had moved over her mouth in shock. She was fairly sure she would start sobbing if she removed them.

“Also” He said, and for the first time the light, cultured voice sounded utterly exhausted. “I did mention the ‘taking advantage of the chaotic political state’ aspect of the situation, yes? That’s the other thing. I’m here to warn you about a bombing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Redcliffe! Dorian! Plot! Who knows what will happen next!


	9. Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang meets Dorian in the flesh, and makes some hasty plans for escaping imminent death.

The inquisition, as it turned out, could move extremely quickly under threat. Even as Cassandra, Cullen and Bull rushed to the main entrance to secure their newest arrival, Josephine and Leliana were sprinting in the direction of the war room. Even as Arianna hurried after Cassandra around the corner, she could hear them arguing over what documents were vital, and which could be replaced. Varric and Lavellan ran in the other direction, towards their quarters, to prepare to pack whatever could be saved. Arianna was suddenly very glad that she kept her bag packed, and within arm’s reach, wherever she went. It bounced against her back, as she and the group of warriors turned into the main entryway.

Krem was already back on his feet, and had his gun out, pointed at the man who must have been the voice over the intercom. He was well groomed, and managed to look dignified even kneeling on the ground with his hands on the back of his head. Or at least, he did look dignified until Cullen hit him in the chest with a full-force smite.

It was hard to look dignified gasping for breath on the floor, and maker knew she had been on the receiving end of enough smites to know it.

“Hey Robes” Bull said,scooping the new arrival's staff off the floor and tossing it at Arianna. “What can you tell us about this?”

Arianna caught the staff and spun in slightly, getting a feel for it’s magic as Cassandra and Cullen put handcuffs on the man she assumed was Dorian Pavus. “Yew, and Onyx.” She said “So, Necromancy, primarily, with a side focus in pyromancy. Should cast a decent barrier, but can't heal so much as a bloody nose.” She gripped it two handed, and felt it warm up in her hands “He’s been using it pretty heavily for the past few days, but I couldn’t tell you what for.”

Cassandra gestured for it, and Arianna reluctantly handed it back. “Is this all necessary?” Arianna said uncomfortably. “He did come to warn us about-”

“A bombing, yes” Cassandra said “And incapacitated our security to do so. He is not free of suspicion, in all of this.” She pulled Dorian to his feet one handed, and pushed him out in front of him.

“Ah, Krem’s fine” Bull said after giving him a quick once-over “That was what, temporarily paralysis?”

“Your concern’s touching, chief.” Krem said “But he’s right. Temporary paralysis, and not even a horror to go along with. Pretty harmless, as far as magic goes. If he wanted me dead, I’d be dead.”

“So can we-“ Arianna gestured at the handcuffs. Cassandra stared her down for a long minute, before relenting.

“Fine.” She said “But we are still questioning him, and make no mistake.” Arianna nodded, and took the keys from Cassandra’s hand.

“Just breathe through it” She said in an undertone to Dorian as she un-cuffed him “I know it feels like you’re dying, but it’ll pass, I promise.”

He heaved one deep breath, then another before he gave himself a shake. “Well!” He said. “That’s a smite, then. I do confess, I had thought them something of an urban legend.”

“You what?” Arianna asked

“Oh, you know” Dorian said with forced levity, rubbing his wrists “We Tevinters tell all sorts of tales about foreign places. Fereldens fornicate with their mabari, Orlesians subsist on nothing but tiny cakes and tea, Southern Templars possess the power to block a mage’s contact with the fade.” He flexed his fingers, and stared at them intently “How long does this last, typically?”

“Half an hour, give or take” Arianna admitted. “I’d say it gets easier, but it doesn’t, really.”

“Charming.” He said “Good to know, I suppose. I will try my very hardest not to receiving end of any more, in any case.” He straightened up, and pulled asymmetrical jacket back into place “But I suspect you probably want to know more about the imminent destruction of your stronghold, yes?”

“That would be appreciated.” Cassandra said dryly. “Although, at least the staff have gone home for the night, if we have to evacuate the building.”

Dorian spun around and pointed at her “While an evacuation would be excellent in theory” He said “In practice, I believe you will find that the Venatori have quite nearly surrounded the building. Its exits, at a bare minimum.”

“I thought they had planted a bomb!” Cullen asked in alarm

“Ah, no, my mistake. Should have made that clearer.” Dorian said apologetically, still leaning heavily on Arianna’s shoulder “They have a contingent of mages, from the Imperium. They plan to bombard the building from outside. I’m not sure they have ever been inside the building, actually.”

“So we are trapped” Cassandra said “Surrounded on every side”

“We can fight our way out!” Cullen said “Break through their lines and regroup on the other side.”

“Not to be a Debbie downer, or anything” Bull said “But there’s no way we can fight through any sort of an organized fighting force. Cassandra’s the only one with an actual gun; the chargers and I all use non-lethal. It wouldn’t surprise me if Red had a pistol stashed away somewhere, but a pair of pea shooters, a handful of Tasers and three non-combat tested mages against a trained unit?” He shook his head, horns nearly putting holes in the plaster walls. “I’ve fought ‘vints before, but that was with half a battalion under my command. I can’t say I like _our_ chances.”

“Bull is right, Cullen” Cassandra said “We cannot engage them directly.”

“We can’t just stay here to die!” Cullen said “We must do _something_!”

“How long do we have?” Krem asked Dorian

“Twenty minutes, if they’re fast” Dorian replied “Half an hour, if we get lucky, but I certainly wouldn’t count on that.”

“Call it fifteen” Krem said “One of my team, Rocky, was looking over old architectural plans for the building when we first set up here. Found a weakness in the old basement, looks like it was intended as a crypt, a few hundred years ago. He mentioned that someone might be able to knock a hole into the building from the old Blight Catacombs.”

“We’ve been sitting on top of an entrance to the Deeproads?” Arianna asked in alarm

“Not the Deeproads; just a bone pit. An oversized graveyard, really.” Krem said “But if we knock a hole in the wall, we could pull through the wall and get out through the catacombs somewhere on the other side of the city, no one the wiser.”

“And the Venatori level the building, and think they’ve turned us into paste.” Bull finished. “I like this plan.”

“This plan leaves us with stranded on the other side of the city in the middle of the night with nowhere to go.” Cassandra said pointedly “Potentially with a contingent of Venatori in pursuit.”

“Better than anything else we’ve got” Bull said “And unless you can think up something better, and fast, we’re going to be dead long before we’ve got a pursuit to worry about.”

Cassandra conceded the point, and suddenly they were on the move again. In the confusion of meeting back up with Josephine and Leliana, Arianna slipped Dorian one of her three remaining lyrium tablets to speed his recovery. Arianna was still supporting Dorian, an around his waist when they met up with Lavellan and Varric, though his colour and breathing had improved considerably. Just before they descended the steps to the basement, Ariana released him to send a single text message, to the contact in her phone labeled only ‘Jenny’.

‘I need a favour’, it read.

‘How quickly can you get fifteen people out of Haven?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cue me playing FAST AND LOOSE with timelines, quote attribution, turning Haven into a horrible mashup between fake rome and fake paris. Ah well.
> 
> Anyway, this weekend, as many of you probably do not know, is Canadian thanksgiving. With that in mind, I plan to stuff myself to the gills with mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie tomorrow, but I also have Monday off, so you might get a bonus chapter then. Who knows.
> 
> Thanks for reading! (Also I've just broken 10 thousand words lmao this is maybe 1/2 done)


	10. Escape Routes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tunnel out of Haven

Arianna was allowed to wield Dorian’s staff to help Lavellan blast a hole through the basement wall, and giving it a brief tap to summon wisps to light their way afterwards comes as naturally as breathing. She eased her way through the narrow gap and pulls some of the rubble into the tunnel itself, and used her position on the other side to assist in widening the hole in the wall. Once it was of a suitable size, she turned back around to face the tunnels surrounding them. The catacombs themselves were filled with bones, neatly stacked and held into alcoves in the walls by chicken wire. Leering skulls formed an entire layer, nestled neatly on top of ribs, separated from their sternums and spines, making tidy pointed arches.

“In case anyone was wondering, Varric said, pulling himself through the gap in the wall and eyeing the bones with resignation “I still hate caves.”

Arianna was supporting Dorian on one shoulder, and carrying his staff in the other, controlling the half-dozen gently glowing wisps that were their only light source. She was waiting for someone to demand the staff back, but the moment didn’t seem to be quick in coming, and she wasn’t going to raise the issue if no one else was. A staff in her hands after nearly a year without, even one keyed to necromancy and fire magic rather than ice and spirit magic was euphoric. She tapped it again, conjuring another wisp just because she could. Josephine clicked on her cellphone light as she climbed through the hole in the wall, carrying her heels and an overstuffed briefcase in her other hand.

“Do we even know which way we’re going?” Varric asked, peering down the hallway one way, and then the other “Or did we not get that far?”

“We were a bit pre-occupied with escaping imminent fiery annihilation, it is true” Dorian said from Arianna’s side “I believe that this is the extent of our planning.

Bull’s company was squeezing their way through the crack one at a time, and Bull himself was insisting that everyone else get through before him. Arianna’s phone buzzed as Bull himself maneuvered carefully through the crack; horns first, sideways, followed by shoulders at an angle.

‘Wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact you’ve been out pretend-sick the last three days while creepies have been lurking outside Skyhold for you, would it?’ the text read ‘Dunnit matter. There’s a truck, big one, on the corner outside your place. Back’s unlocked, it’ll be moving by the morning. Be there.’

Cold ice slipped into Arianna’s stomach at the near-miss. “If we head south” She said, pitching her voice to carry “I can get us out of the city.”

Even Dorian, supported on her side as he was, looked at her in surprise. Arianna shifted uncomfortably under the weight of the stares.

“And we are simply to trust you?” Cassandra asked “Is this another one of your secrets, then?”

“Cassandra” Josephine admonished “That’s not fair.”

There was a tense moment where they all stared at one another before Cassandra sighed “You are right, of course.” She said, turning to lead them down the tunnel. “Forgive me. That was unwarranted.”

A blast echoed from the building upstairs, and a tiny amount of dust rained down on them.

Bull clapped his hands “South it is! Dalish, come here and give me some light.” Lavellan looked like he was about to protest before a small elven woman from his band stepped forward, and tapped a staff on the ground, lighting a crystal at the tip.

“There’s a mage in your chargers?” Arianna asked in surprise

“Not a mage!” Dalish said, turning back around “That would make me an apostate, after all, and that’s illegal.”

“Right” Bull agreed, “Dalish here is our electrician.”

“An electrician with a staff”Dorian remarked “That’s a first for me.”

“It’s a voltage monitor” Dalish said, with an expression that declared butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth

“A voltage monitor topped with a crystal” Arianna said dryly.

“It’s a lightbulb” Chorused back both Dalish and Bull, apparently repeating a well-worn argument.

Josephine sighed as she fell into step beside Arianna and Dorian “They have always been like that” She groused “The entire company denies that she is a mage, and pretends they have no knowledge whatsoever of it when we ask to speak with them about their experience with magic. It is infuriating.”

“Still, you can’t exactly blame them” Arianna said, as a second blast reverberated overhead. “Lavellan did tell you what the chantry does to Dalish mages.”

Josephine nodded, conceding the point. “I suppose you are correct. Sadly, that does not prevent it from being frustrating.” She brushed some dust from her jacket, frowning as a third and fourth blast rumbled overhead. Their group picked up the pace, through the convoluted twists and turns combined with the dark to keep them from reaching anything near the speed they would have liked. Dorian was breathing hard again, and Josephine dipped around to his other side. She reshuffled her belongings, tucking her phone into her pocket and took Dorian’s other arm.

“It occurs to me that no-one has thought to thank you yet.” Josephine said to him, as the three of them began moving faster. “So on behalf of the inquisition, thank you.” 

“My dear lady, you are quite welcome” Dorian said. “You would be Ms. Montilyet, I presume? I have been watching your press releases, you have quite the presence on camera. I must say the reality lives up to that impression.”

“And your name was Dorian Pavus, you said?” Josephine replied without missing a beat “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Dorian smiled at her before turning to Arianna on his other side. How he managed to look like he belonged on the cover of some soap opera, after being smote and careening down some long abandoned grave tunnel was beyond her, but he managed it.

“I do not believe I’ve seen you onscreen, however.” He said to her. “But I must presume you are the Inquisition’s witness from the circle?”

No point in hiding it, she thought. He’d already seen her cast, after all. “Arianna Trevelyan” She introduced “Formerly of Ostwick Circle.”

“Not Rayla Hannlin?” He asked in surprise “That’s the individual the Venatori were looking for, and I didn’t think the inquisition had two witnesses.”

“Why” she said, and it was only the previous warning from Sera that kept her panicking at the idea that she had been two days and a warning from Lavellan away from enslavement “Do you think I’d have to be to be openly going by the name the circle in Ostwick has on record for me when Templars are shooting escapees on sight?”

“Fair enough. Well then, Arianna Trevelyan, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Dorian winced as three blasts in quick succession made the bones in the walls literally rattle. “I do wish it was under better circumstances.”

They had arrived at what appeared to be a chain-link fence stretched across the centre of the passageway, probably designed to keep out tourists on the other side. Bull and Cassandra were already in the process of tearing it from its moorings in the wall to create an exit. They nearly had it when there was an unholy screeching from behind them in the tunnel. As one, they turned around to stare at the passageway behind them. Arianna’s wisps bounced sedately around them, casting them all in flickering, sickly green light.

“Pavus” Cassandra said “Do you know what that was?”

“Unfortunately I do.” Dorian said, ashen faced. “I believe they have realised we escaped, and sent demons after us to finish the job.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> catch me in my room at two in the morning, changing the genres of all my fics.
> 
> Also, bonus points if anyone caught Felix and Alexius lurking around skyhold a couple of chapters ago.


	11. Suprises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the inquisition loses it's pursuers, and gets a surprise in the aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note change in warnings/ratings. Also, this is officially the longest piece of fiction I've ever written, edging out ahead a mass effect fic currently in the editing workshop by about 38 words. Neat!

At the news of demons, Bull gave up the pretence of finesse altogether and knocked in the rest of the fence with one enormous kick.

“You said South, right?” Bull asked Arianna, ushering people through the gap “How far south is south?”

“Corner of Regency and Thirty-first” She replied, passing Dorian through the gap. “There's a truck outside the pawnshop on the north side.” Bull swung Dorian over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, completely ignoring Dorian’s noise of protest.

“You heard the lady” He said, pointing down one of the tunnels “Take the first set of stairs you come to; the only thing worse than fighting demons is fighting demons in close quarters. If we get separated, keep running and meet us there.”

The last of Bull’s chargers pulled themselves through the gates, and Krem bent it back into place while Dalish layered a thick coat of ice on top. Cullen took the lead again, and as a group, they began running, sprinting, really, through the tunnels. The more frequently travelled parts of the catacombs were wider, and buzzing with florescent lighting, but still stacked with bones on every side. The lights and informational plaques made the entire tunnel seem like a particularly morbid hospital. They were far enough away from the original site of the Inquisition’s quarters that the echoed rumble of the blasting no longer shook loose dust, but simply caused the lights to flicker. From behind them in the tunnel, came the telltale shrieking of a terror, echoed by the horrifyingly deep rumble of not one but two rage demons.

“Hey Krem!” Bull called back at the group, keeping pace with Cullen despite having Dorian in a fireman’s carry over one shoulder.

“Yes chief!” Came the professional reply from the back of the group

“I hate your fucking country!”

“Thanks chief!”

Bull let out one low gravelly ‘Ha!’ before picking the pace up even further. Arianna was breathing heavy, the borrowed staff slung over one shoulder on its strap like a rifle. Josephine’s stockinged feet padded alongside Arianna noiselessly, and Josephine had hiked up her pencil skirt to allow her to run faster. On her other side, Varric was keeping pace, holding his bag so it didn’t smash against his knees in a manner that suggested that he had done this at least once or twice before.

Lavellan was running with an intent that suggested that the ground had done something to anger him personally, staff held loosely in his right hand swinging wildly with every step. The chargers were in the rear, running full tilt, most of them with their hands on their weapons. Leliana and Cassandra ran shoulder to shoulder, red-faced but otherwise unaffected, with twin expressions promising murder writ clear across their faces. Arianna wondered who, exactly the rage was directed at: The demons, the ones summoning them, or the ones who allowed this state of chaos to exist in the first place.

She gave herself a tiny shake; there would be time for thoughts like that later, when they weren’t all fleeing for their lives. They rounded one more corner, and skidded to a halt.

“Thank the Maker’s hairy right testicle” Varric said, hands on his knees and panting “ _Stairs_.”

Stairs there were, leading right up to street level. There was a little toll booth, at the top, where tourists would buy tickets to gawk at the bones of the victims of the first three blights, and wander around brightly-light, well-marked catacombs, thinking they were daring. At the moment, all the turnstile was doing was forcing them to process up the stairs as a swarm, and hop over it one at a time, bait for demons all the while. Bull had to go through it sideways, before he dumped Dorian gently if unceremoniously on a bench on the other side to help the rest of them through. Cullen was standing at the end of the line, on this side of the gates, gripping Cassandra’s service gun firmly.

Arianna was catching her breath, letting the others pass through the turnstile before her when the demons shrieked behind them in the catacombs. She and Cullen turned as one to peer into the maze of tunnels they had just come from. Lavellan and Varric were the last ones save herself and Cullen through the gates, and at Cullen’s head gesture she hurried through the turnstile after them. She tried not to think too hard about the fact that in a crisis like this, her first instinct was still to ask a Templar's permission to flee. Cullen followed directly after her, and as the tollgate spun into place behind him, she got the first sight of the demons pursuing them.

The Terror was a horrifying, attenuated thing; limbs too long for its body and talons too long for its limbs. It seemed to be composed only of elongated bones and sinew, all dyed the otherworldly green of the fade. It was caught in the light of the two rage demons on its sides; a glowing honour guard made of magma, bright as it was deadly. Cullen sent a Holy Smite careening down the stairs at them. It ripped past Arianna with the force of a freight train, but it didn’t cause anything more than a ripple in the molten flesh of the rage demons and the terror seemed to disregard it entirely.

“Go!” Cullen yelled at the rest of the group, now through the atrium of the catacomb tour entrance and back on the open street. Arianna spent one last moment throwing a wall of pointed ice at them down the stairs like a row of barbed wire before turning to sprint after the rest of the group. She and Cullen were in the rear of the group, and likely the only ones save Bull who had ever faced demons in an actual combat situation before, during the circle uprisings. Thankfully, this particular demon incident was at one in the morning on a Wednesday, in the middle of Kirkwall in broad daylight on a weekend as so many of Kirkwall's demons were. At least here, unlike Cullen's circle, civilians and non-combatants were few and far between.

Still, there were enough that they stared at the inquisition in confusion as they sped past, and that they went scrambling for cover when their pursuers emerged from the catacombs.

Arianna’s ice wall appeared not to have slowed them down much at all; she probably shouldn’t have expected it to with the pair of red-hot rage demons in pursuit. The terror seemed to be looking around, paused for a moment to scent the air, almost like a mabari. It seemed to have lost them. It was turning to stare eyelessly at a woman crouched behind a mailbox. She was shaking slightly and clutching one hand over her mouth in terror. Arianna, before she could think better of the idea, turned on her heel sent an ice spike at the terror. The spike collided with its ribcage of a chest, and stayed stuck halfway through its left side. She hoped it hurt.

“Hey!” She yelled

It turned back towards the members of the inquisition, running full tilt down the disreputable centre of Thirty First Street, and away from the civilians on the sidewalk. Cullen sent a single shot at one of the rage demons. She’d say this for Templar training: the shot was expertly aimed, knocking a chunk of molten mass the size of a watermelon out of its torso, and subsequently reducing the size of the demon altogether. Arianna sent one single guilty moment wishing she was in a circle with an entire battalion of Templars to deal with the situation before she and Cullen turned to flee as one. The two of them had gotten their attention, now they simply had to survive it.

The scummy part of Thirty-First street, and there were no shortage of scummy parts of Thirty-First Street, was spared the devastation of a full-fledged confrontation. The other mages who weren’t recovering from a smite gravitated towards the back of the party, as did Krem, who carried the only other live firearm in the inquisition. Likely Bull had a handful in lockup, but there hadn’t been time to grab them before they fled. The five of them took informal turns pivoting, firing a round or two into their pursuers, and then turning to sprint back to the relative safety of the rest of the group. Of all of them, Lavellan was probably the least trained in actual combat, Cullen the most. Dalish and Krem were the most used to working with one another; on one occasion pivoting at the same moment and collaborating to use vines and covering fire to cause a collision between the terror and the wounded rage demon.

It was impressive, for a company not trained to fight together. It also wasn’t nearly enough. A pair of pistols and three untrained mages simply was not a match for a trio of demons fueled by blood and called to this side of the veil for the sole purpose of killing the people they were currently pursuing. By the time they were one block from the truck, one of the rage demons had been reduced to ash, but Krem was nursing a burn wound from a lucky shot from the other, both he and Cullen were out of bullets, all the mages were low on mana and the remaining pair of demons was gaining on them.

Arianna popped her second-to-last lyrium tablet out of the packet in her coat pocket, and cast a barrier around the inquisition’s rear guard with the last of her natural mana before swallowing it dry. The fifteen seconds before it took effect might as well have been a lifetime. The rage demon was drawing closer, its heat peeling the paint right off of the sides of cars, and the terror had dropped to all fours to pursue them. It was a scene plucked quite literally out of a mage’s worst nightmares.

Arianna pivoted on one heel and hit the terror with a Psionic blast mid stride, catching it off balance and knocking it ten feet down the road, landing on its back. She hadn’t been trained in combat officially since she was a teenager, more than a decade prior when the Divine decreed every circle ready their forces in preperations for the Blight leaving Ferelden, but there were some things you never forgot. Arianna let loose a frenzy of ice magic; a wall of ice sprouting right in the centre of the demon's stem to slow it down and two quick flurries of gale-force blizzard to follow it up. One last chunk of ice finished the second rage demon; blood-made heat dying in the wake of artificially induced, lyrium-fed cold. The terror, on the other hand, was still as deadly as ever.

While she had been occupied with the last rage demon, the terror had regained its balance, and it shrieked, otherworldly, at the loss of its brethren. The effect was rather spoiled when a Molotov cocktail collided with the back of the thing’s head, causing it to burst into flames. It let noise of pain and confusion, akin to nails on a chalkboard. Arianna took advantage of the unexpected help to freeze the damn thing solid, from the animalistic feet to the horrible eyeless head.

“Look at you, little miss lives-under-a-bridge, rubbing shoulders and bits with the fancy-pants inquisition” Sera’s voice called from an alleyway, before the elf herself appeared jumping down from a fire escape, landing nearly in the street. “You’ve moved up in the world! Nearly didn’t recognize you!”

“Sera!” Arianna exclaimed in relief, allowing herself to slump against her borrowed staff.

Sera was dressed in a shirt with the sleeves and collar cut out, frayed edges exposing a bra whose bright red colour clashed strangely with the black and yellow flannel she was pretending was a jacket. She was wearing yesterday’s mascara as if it were todays eyeliner, a pair of combat boots with mismatched laces and a pair of jeans so tattered they were more hole than pants. She was tucking a military-grade slingshot into the back pocket of her jeans, and Arianna was hard pressed to think of another time she’d ever been so relieved to see another person.

“I didn’t think you’d be coming personally!” Arianna said, instead of any of that.

“Me either, first off” She said “But that was before crazies with guns started stalking the streets. All but surrounded where the inquisition used to be, so I figured I’d see you all into the truck myself.”

She pointed across the street, where there was indeed an eighteen wheeler siting parked in in front of a pawnshop and the out-of-business laundromat which played the ground floor to Arianna’s three-room apartment. It had smiling fruit painted on the sides.

“You can’t be serious, Trevelyan, this is your plan?” Cassandra asked.

Sera scowled at her “Well if you’d rather be shot full of more holes than fancy cheese, let’s all wait around for his grand arseholyness whoever the third to come investigate the death of his beasties, yeah?” She said “Otherwise, help me get everyone else all in the truck, and then you can wait as long as your prim and proper heart desires for a better ride, out here by yourself if you like.”

Cassandra grumbled her assessment, and followed Sera to the back latch of the truck to start helping people in. Arianna took two steps to the side of the road, and sat down heavily on the bumper of an old Sedan. Josephine clicked towards her, and a pair of delicate black pumps came into Arianna’s field of vision; Josephine had apparently put her shoes back on now that they were out of danger.

Arianna looked up from Josephine’s feet (and she wasn’t about to deny that it was a nice journey) to find a hand extended out at her. There was dust in her elegant updo, and her blouse was half untucked from her slightly rumpled pencil skirt. Sweat beaded gracefully on her brow. Apparently, Josephine put the ‘artful’ in ‘artfully dishevelled’. Arianna took her hand, and pulled herself back to standing, using both Josephine and the staff as she did so.

“Are you alright?” Josephine asked her. Arianna did a mental checklist; nothing broken, nothing sprained: just muscles that hadn’t been used in moths experiencing a rude re-awakening and the chemical tang of false mana burning through her veins.

“I’ll be fine” Arianna said, bumping shoulders with her gently. “Bit of a lyrium headache in the morning, that’s all. They never touched me.”

“You will have to tell me how you met this Sera” Josephine said, stepping delicately around the inches-high swirls of ice Arianna’s magic had left in the street. If she was unsettled by it, hid it exceptionally well. Knowing someone was a mage was one thing, seeing them cast in the middle of a fight for their lives was quite another. Now, beyond any shadow of a doubt, Josephine knew Arianna was dangerous. “She seems like quite the character.” Josephine continued, oblivious to Arianna’s internal turmoil.

“Well-“ Arianna said, and whatever she was going to say was interrupted be the horrible creaking of ice, from the terror she had thought finished in the middle of the street. Arianna turned as though she was in slow motion, to see the ice encasing the demon to split around the joints, and the demon emerge from it as though shedding an old skin. There was no time to think, barely any time to act, certainly not enough time to be able to summon the sort of focus necessary to tap into the lyrium’s false-fade before it was upon them.

She pushed Josephine behind her, and raised Dorian’s Yew and Onyx necromancy staff in a clumsy attempt to parry the demon’s lunge.

The Terror’s claws scythed under her sloppy guard, bit deep into her side, and she screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D
> 
> I was thiiiiiiiis close to having the tunnel collapse on Trevelyan, poor girl. I'm very rude to her. 
> 
> Also, the first words I wrote for this chapter were, predictably "I fucking hate your country" "Thanks Chief", although the 'little miss lives-under-a-bridge' had been percolating for a while too. 
> 
> Also, if Varric and Leliana reminiscing on the nature of Heroes and abuse of poetic licence in prose interests you, I wrote a quick one-shot about that earlier this week, you should check it out.


	12. Healing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Josephine tries to repair some of the damage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey as a heads up: This chapter is bloody and gory as all get out. Slightly more than canon-typical violence, in that it deals with the messyness that receiving a nasty gut wound would actually entail. You have been warned.

There were very few situations in which Josephine had ever felt entirely useless, but this was one of them. The last four hours had been a frenzy in which Josephine had felt more a liability than an assistance, and this feeling only increased once the back of the party actually engaged with the demons in pursuit. She had chanced a look back only once, and had seen Lavellan throw a barrier around Arianna a split second before a jet of magma collided with her back, and watched the heat of the shot melt the asphalt where it splattered around her feet.

She kept her attention on running forward, after that.

Just when it had seemed safe, as Cassandra and Arianna’s ‘friend’ helped people into the back of the truck, as she had met with Arianna on equal footing again, as it looked as though they might get away with no more loss than a handful of documents and the building itself, the terror demon broke from its icy imprisonment.

Josephine is not proud of what happened next: She froze. She froze, and Arianna pushed her out of the way to shield her. Josephine fell over backwards just as the terror swung at Arianna. Josephine was only a foot and a half back and looking up at the two of them; the perfect position to see the claws tear right through Arianna's side.

Now, the terror was shrieking, someone from in the truck was sending fireballs at the demon, and Arianna was screaming, clutching at a rent on her torso. Three long gashes in her side, stretching horizontally from her side to nearly her navel, between her hips and her ribs. The gashes in her threadbare coat that were rapidly turning red, doubtless mirrored in the flesh beneath. Arianna fell to her knees as the terror died, collapsing in a hideous and improbable mass of limbs behind her. Arianna was staring at the gash in her side like she couldn’t quite believe it was there, blood leaking out around trembling fingers. Josephine sat up and pressed her hands to the wound in her side on top of Arianna’s own fingers, as though she could repair it through sheer force of will.

Lavellan had jumped back out of the truck, and took a knee beside them. He reached for Arianna’s side and she flinched, jerking away from his hands and then hissing through her teeth. Lavellan raised his hands, and tried to meet Arianna’s pain-glazed eyes.

“Arianna” He said “Da’lath’in. I am a healer. Let me look.”

They stared at each other a while longer while Arianna hitched quick shallow breaths. Abruptly, she broke eye contact with Lavellan and fumbled with one pocket, handing Lavellan something that Josephine couldn’t see. Lavellan looked at it, and then of all things, swallowed it. Bewildered, Josephine watched as Lavellan shuddered, and then opened his eyes with renewed energy.

“Alright” Lavellan said softly “Let me have a look.”

Lavellan began his exploration with faintly glowing fingers, and Arianna’s tiny choked noise of pain as he did so nearly broke Josephine’s heart.

“Montilyet” Lavellan said to her, still absorbed in Arianna’s side “Help me lie her down”

Josephine quickly shuffled to Ariana’s other side, probably tearing her stockings, to place one hand between Arianna’s shoulder blades and the other to hold her hand. Before they could lower her down, the sharp crack of gunfire came from down the street, from the direction both they and the demons had come. Josephine and Lavellan exchanged a look, and instead of helping Arianna to the ground pulled her to her feet. Arianna, for her part, tried to help them, stumbling with them in the direction of the truck.

Cassandra and Cullen both were waiting at the rear doors, and Cullen stepped forwards as the approached to pick Arianna up and carry her onto the floor of the truck bed. He must have unintentionally jostled her wound as he laid her down on the plywood floor; Josephine could hear her pained cry even over Cassandra pulling the door down behind them with an almighty rattle and crash. Lavellan and Josephine took up their positions on either side of Arianna again, Lavellan crouching down at her wound. Arianna turned her head away from him, and the spreading pool of blood at her side, lacing her fingers through Josephine’s own as the deep rumble of the engine starting up echoed through the cargo hold.

Aside from the noises of the engine, and Arianna’s rattling shallow breaths, the inside of the van was eerily silent. Josephine pressed a gentle kiss to Arianna’s knuckles as the truck started moving.

“I need a light” Lavellan said into the hush “I can barely see what I’m doing over here.”

Bull, of all people, retrieved a small penlight from his keys, popping it off the ring by simply breaking the small attaching chain. Lavellan took it from him and stuck it between his teeth, bending back to his position at Arianna’s side.

“Ir abelas, Arianna” He said “This is going to hurt”

He did something that Josephine didn’t see at her side, and Arianna bucked off the floor, squeezing Josephine’s fingers and screaming.

“Someone hold her still!” Lavellan yelled “I need to get in there or she’s going to bleed out!”

Iron Bull took up position on the floor above Arianna’s head, and braced two massive hands against her shoulders. Arianna’s eyes were flicking one face to the next uncomprehendingly, and tried to arch again as Lavellan’s magic worked at her side, keening in pain and confusion when Bull’s hands kept her braced on the floor. Arianna instead kicked out ineffectually, and thumped her head against the floor of the truck. There was a distinctly panicked note to her breathing now, even as she squeezed her eyes shut. _Not to be physically restrained at any time for any reason_ Josephine’s mind supplied guiltily.

“She have to be awake for this?” Bull asked Lavellan, staring down at Arianna’s clammy face

“You have the drugs, be my guest” Lavellan pulled his fingers out of her side, wiped them on his pants, re-adjusted the penlight and moved to the second gash. His phone buzzed, and he retrieved it from his pocket and tossed it to the other side of the truck, where it cast dim light against the wall. Josephine noted with some astonishment that the gash highest on Arianna’s side was now an angry red line of scar tissue, no longer an open sucking wound.

“Otherwise I need to focus on making sure she doesn’t bleed out and I can’t do that while also maintaining a stupor on her, so we’re just going to hope she passes out.”

Lavellan clenched the light between his teeth, and his fingers disappeared up to the knuckle in the second gash.  Arianna abruptly released Josephine’s hand to slap it open handed on the ground beside her, sending snow spiralling up around her fingers. Lavellan added his second hand to the first, and Arianna dug her fingernails into the floor, changing the light dusting of powder snow around her hand abruptly to a half-inch of solid ice. Josephine took her hand again, clutching Arianna’s frozen hand in both of hers.

“Halfway there” Lavellan said. “You’re being so good, can do this.”

Arianna whimpered in reply.

As Lavellan began to seal up the second tear in Arianna’s side, Josephine traced idle patterns on her hand. The curious faded callus at the joint of her Arianna’s thumb that she had always wondered about was torn open. A staff callus, Josephine realized. Her fingernails, as always, were bitten down to the quick. Arianna was crying, tears leaking out of her eyes with regularity as she lay on the floor.

Josephine let go of Arianna’s hand with one of her own to gently brush them off her face, tucking her hair behind her ears as she did so.

“Last one” Lavellan promised, and then dug his fingers deep into Arianna’s side. Arianna keened, high-pitched and desperate, eyes screwed shut. Her fingers had a death-grip on Josephine’s own once more. Her sobs faded as Lavellan sealed the last gash in her side, and she mercifully, finally, lost consciousness.

Lavellan finished, and then staggered backwards, hands shaking and covered up to the elbows in blood. He pulled the penlight out of his mouth and ran one trembling hand through his hair, leaving red streaks in its wake. Arianna continued to breathe regularly on the floor, and the blood from her side radiated on the plywood floor nearly a foot and a half from her side. Lavellan must have been kneeling in it for the past hour, Josephine realized. He tried to stand and stumbled, catching himself on the wall.

“Creators” he said “I need a cigarette.”

He laid his coat over Arianna’s pale body on the floor, patting her cheek with one hand.

“Come get me if she wakes up” he said to Josephine, and then he turned and stood with Bull’s help, making his way slowly over to where the rest of the inquisition rested at the cab side of the cargo hold. Josephine wadded her scarf into a pillow and tucked it under her head before following him. Instead of sitting down with the assorted hangers on of the inquisition as he did, however, Josephine retrieved her work bag, currently stuffed to the brim with documents.

She retrieved a small compact mirror from a side pocket, and took stock. Her hair was coming out of her bun, there was a smear of blood on her cheek, sweat was beading on her brow, and her lip was very nearly split where she had bit it when Arianna pushed her out of the way. She pulled two more curls out of her bun, patted dry the sweat on her brow and worried the gash on her bottom lip until it bled. Satisfied, she shut the compact mirror with a brisk snap and replaced in in her bag, retrieving instead her laptop.

“Josephine” said Cassandra kindly “That can wait.”

“It cannot” Josephine said, booting up her computer “I appreciate your concern, but our headquarters have just been razed to the ground, there has been gunfire in the streets of haven, half of Thedas likely thinks the Inquisition _dead_ , we have nowhere to retreat to, Arianna has been gravely wounded, the entire organized mage rebellion has been kidnaped by a contingent of magisters, those same magisters are in no doubt in pursuit of us not to mention-“

“Josephine.” She said again, and Josephine realized she had not stopped to breathe for several sentences.

Josephine took a deep breath, held it for a count of three, and then let it out through her nose. “Cassandra” She started again. “Thank you. But I _have to do this._ By the time the morning news cycle is in full swing, all of Thedas will know what has happened in Haven. We cannot let them talk about us without knowing what it is they are saying. We can use this to our advantage, but if an only if we get on top of the story now. If we don’t release a statement, our reputation will be irreparably damaged.”

Cassandra looked at Josephine as though none of this had occurred to her.

“Please” Josephine tried again “I realise that this has been a difficult night for all of us, but let me do my job.”

Cassandra’s eyes flickered from where Arianna lay in the back of the truck, to the blood caught under Josephine’s fingernails, where they were balled tightly into fists sitting in her legs. Cassandra nodded, once, and Josephine opened her laptop and began to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to Project Elvhen for the elvish endearment, which loosely translates to 'little heart', used to describe someone who wears their heart on their sleeve.
> 
> None of you probably know much about Canadian politics, but we have a new prime minister now! I got very drunk to celebrate that Monday night, but that's about the last of the campaign stuff that will interfere with me writing this fic. -blows noisemaker-


	13. Reports

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Non-Josephine members of the inquisition and outside the Inquisition deal with the fallout.

 

** The Denerim Herald:  **

What Just Happened in Haven?

                The face of Josephine Montilyet, public face of the Inquisition into the conditions of the circles and former Antivan ambassador to Orlais, is not an unfamiliar sight to anyone that has been paying even passing attention to the news in the past several months. Calm, cool, collected and personable, Ambassador Montilyet has been nothing but put together in even candid since she has begun working with the inquisition in the past year. Her video statements have come to be known for her calm delivery and professional attention to detail and editing. The video she released last night bore no resemblance to any of those. This video was posted to the official Inquisition press-release page at nearly 3:30 am this morning: in it Ambassador Montilyet is covered in what appears to be demolition dust and noticeably bleeding from a split lip. She is visibly distressed in this video, the background to which is not the official Inquisition heraldry as we’ve come to expect for the back of these videos, but instead what appears to be the interior of a moving vehicle.

                The facts as we know them are these: At 12:45pm last night, an unknown man entered the inquisition’s headquarters, climbing the fence in order do so. At 12:55pm, armed men in what has now been confirmed as false police uniforms erected roadblocks in the street around the headquarters, and began refusing traffic within a two-block radius. At 1:00am precisely, these same forces began firing what appear to be artillery rounds into the gated divinical summer apartments which until last night were occupied by the Inquisition. By 1:15, the 400 year brick-and-marble building lay in ruins. By 1:20, the roadblocks were dismantled, and the assailants had returned to their vehicles and fled the scene.

                At 1:45 am, the inquisition emerged from the tourist entrance to the Blight Tunnels on the east side of Thirty-First Street, over a dozen kilometers away. This group was made up of fifteen individuals, including Ambassador Montilyet, the left and right hands of the divine, and former knight-captain of Kirkwall Circle Cullen Rutherford, among several other as-yet unidentified persons. This party was pursued by three demons of unknown origin. There is cellhone footage from a citzen who happened to be passing by showing a member of the Inquisition casting a spell at one of them, with the apparent intention to draw it away from bystanders. Ambassador Montilyet’s official statement confirms what the internet had been speculating since the footage was posted at 2:00 am last night: the mage in this video is the Inquisition’s key witness from inside the circle.

The marks of a firefight between the Inquisition and the demons is scattered across nearly two and a half miles of thirty-first street, culminating at the intersection of Thirty-First and Regency, where investigators report the remains of two of the demons and a trail of blood.

                In her statement, Ambassador Montilyet informs us that there were no casualties among the Inquisition’s members. She also states that their witness from the circle was critically wounded, but has since been stabilized, and is expected to make a full recovery. In her video, Ambassador Montilyet claims the attack on the Inquisition’s headquarters was an attempt of a fringe group to discredit the inquisition’s authority and further de-stabilize the Mage-Templar conflict. She assures us that the inquisition is safe, and that she would not be disclosing their location or destination for the foreseeable future.

There has, as of the time of this article’s posting, been no official statement from either Redcliffe or Therinfal Redoubt.

Total damages to the city of haven have not yet been calculated.

* * *

 

Bull helped Lavellan sat down heavily with the rest of the inquisition, one of his arms around Lavellan’s tiny elven waist. It took him two tries to open his pack of cigarettes, and he fumbled his lighter three times before the vint who’d warned them about the bombing, Dorian, reached over and provided a small flame between two of his fingers. Lavellan, cigarette lit, leaned back against the wall of the truck, closed his eyes and took a deep drag.

“That” Dorian said “Was quite incredible. I had read about Dalish healing magic, but actually seeing it is altogether another story. It wasn’t spirit healing, exactly, was it?”

Lavellan blew smoke out his nose. “Pavus, I’ve spent the last hour wrist deep in a friend, after running for my life, from the same group who just sold a not-so-distant cousin of mine into slavery. I’m not feeling particularly inclined to share any Dalish secrets with Tevinter magisters at the moment.”

“Ah.” Dorian said, and sat back pretending to fuss with his coat. “My apologies.” He shifted slightly, and Bull noticed for the first time how deep the shadows under his eyes were.

Lavellan let out something that could charitably be called a laugh, and took another drag.

“How bad was it?” Bull asked. Gut wounds were always messy, and tricky to fix at the best of times. Then again, it wasn’t as though Bull ever got medical attention within minutes of receiving one, so what did he know.

“Bad” Lavellan replied. “If you had to take her to a hospital she’d be in be in the early stages of septic shock right now. Abdominal cavity torn right open, intestines punctured in three places. Missed her kidney by a fraction of an inch, thank the creators for small favours. She lost a lot of blood anyway; I wouldn’t be surprised if she stayed out for the next day at least.”

Bull watched both Dorian and Lavellan as Lavellan explained. Lavellan was just exhausted; he wouldn’t be surprised if the elf fell asleep before he finished his smoke. Dorian on the other hand looked increasingly alarmed and slightly nauseated. Bull mentally put another tick in the ‘not a spy’ column. Lavellan closed his eyes again as he finished talking, focusing all of his energy on the cigarette between his fingers.

“Beanpole, when’s the last time you slept?” Varric asked “You look like shit, and while I knew a mage once who could do two, three days at a time without slowing down he wasn’t exactly what I’d call the model of a healthy lifestyle.”

“Couple of days ago.” Lavellan said “Been a little pre-occupied trying to find out what happened in Redcliffe since my contact went silent. Now I know, I guess.”

“I wish I brought better news.” Dorian said. “I’d been stalling them for three days before they discovered me and chased me out. I was rather hoping someone would come to investigate.”

Lavellan snorted “Us and whose army? All we knew is that communications were cut and someone was setting up roadblocks. Nothing any of us could do without risking provoking the mages into actual war if we were wrong. For all I knew, they had discovered Hawenn was a Dalish spy and killed her. Last thing I want is the mage rebellion coming after the clans.”

“Sorry, when you say you had a contact in Redcliffe, you meant you actually had a spy in Redcliffe?” Dorian asked

“Sure. “ Lavellen said. The ember of his cigarette was getting dangerously close to his knuckles, and he adjusted his grip around it. “We wanted to keep an eye on what was happening in Redcliffe, Hawenn agreed to go. There’s another stationed with the Templars to the north, and I’m here, obviously. We’ve been keeping a very close watch on this situation since it began last year. We’re not simple, Tevinter. We know whatever happens here is going to affect all of us.”

                Bull thought about Dalish’s enthusiasm for taking a jobs in the free marches after the collapse of the Kirkwall circle and resolved to have a word with her about it.

                “He’s not wrong about that” Varric said, adjusting his briefcase behind his head “All the city states are keeping an eye, not to mention the Carta and the Coterie. Anyone else with even a little toe in the lyrium trade’s watching the inquisition as though it’s thinking about taking a shit in their prize begonias.”

                “The Triumvirate has me writing letters back home” Bull offered. “Par Vollen’s as concerned as anybody else about where the chips fall on this one.”

                Dorian blinked, and then took a look around at the lot of them, probably taking actual stock of the people in the truck with him for the first time. Bull’s chargers, bless em, had all piled together by the cab of the truck and decided to get some sleep while it was on offer. Krem’s head had tipped back, and he was snoring with his mouth open.

                “Quite the collection of people, this inquisition.” Dorian said finally. Varric laughed.

                “A qunari, a tevinter on the run, a former circle mage, a Dalish first, not to mention the chargers and the advisors to the Divine over there” Varric jerked a thumb where the advisors were huddled together over Josephine’s laptop discussing possible destinations. Varric shook his head.

                “We’re just one chief of police and a pirate short of a real party.” He said.

                Lavellen put out his cigarette butt on the side of the truck, completely extinguishing the ember with a pinch of frost before tucking the end of it into his pocket.

“I think I’d rather sleep for twelve straight hours, at the moment.”

Varric grinned at him, two-people-in-a-weird-situation friendly. “Sure thing. We’ll wake you up if Trevelyan starts spurting blood or trying to run laps.”

Lavellen grunted in acknowledgement, and then picked his way over to the line of sleepers by the front of the truck and bunked down. Varric watched him go and then, clearly struck by inspiration, rummaged in his coat for a few seconds. After checking every other pocket in his coat, (outer left, outer right, inner left, right breast, in that order Bull noted.) He emerged with a deck of cards.

“Knew I had these in here somewhere!” He said triumphantly. He pulled the cards out of the box and shuffled the worn cards with ease. He was also, Bull noted, stacking the deck as though he was dealing for seven players rather than three.

“What do you say?” Varric asked.

Dorian looked around the interior of the truck one more time, all the corrugated metal sheeting and the plywood floor, at the elf driving it and at the bloodstain that Bull could already tell was never going to come out of the floorboards. Dorian turned back to Varric, and Bull knew what he was going to say before the words left his mouth.

“Why not” he said. “Deal me in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's my headcanon that Dalish's first meant 'keep an eye on the outside world for us' when she said 'see the world' and you can't convince me otherwise. 
> 
> (Sidenote: can you imagine the news cycle in the 24 hours following Haven? It'd be a disaster oh my god.)


	14. Starts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian and Sera pick up breakfast for the Inquisition.

 

That morning, at around seven, their benevolent rescuer had declared them all in need of breakfast, which is how Dorian found himself pushing a shopping cart in a twenty-four hour grocers watching an elf wearing in tattered jeans compare on-sale bagels.

“So, Sera was it?”

She looked up at him, and then tossed three packs of bagels into the cart “Yeah?”

“How is it that you came to know Arianna?”

“Is that her real name?” Sera said curiously “Nice. Suits her.”

Dorian stared at her as she made her way to the produce section and began poking through bunches of bananas.

“You didn’t know her name before this?”

 “She didn’t want to give it, first off, and it’d be backwards to ask her for it after I gave her a new one, wouldn’t it? Can’t give someone a fake and then ask them their real name.” Sera explained this as though it was obvious.

“You were the one who called her Rayla?” Dorian asked “Why?”

“Name on the licence that looked most like her, and she needed a licence. Nothing else to it, not everything has to be complicated.”

Dorian mulled that over.

“No, that doesn’t help actually, I’m still lost” He said eventually “Why were you giving her a licence at all?”

“Because you need ID for junk!” She said, growing frustrated “You need ID to get a job, and a job to have a place and not sleep under a bridge, and not sleeping under a bridge is top priority, when you’re sleeping under a bridge, unless everywhere else is worse.”

“Why was she sleeping under a bridge?” Dorian asked in alarm.

Sera turned away from the bananas on display and instead grabbed a bag of apples for the cart.

“Why do people usually sleep under bridges?” She asked rhetorically “Anyway, wasn’t my business how she got there, I was trying to get her to not-there. So, got her food, fake, job, roof. And then she wasn’t sleeping under a bridge, so wins all around.”

“How much did that cost you?”

“What? Oh, ehhhh,” Sera stared at the box of granola bars in her hands while she was thinking. “Sixty, seventy dollars? That’s mostly the ID, mind, I just knew someone who had a job and a place that was willing to take deposit in cash and over a couple of weeks. Oh! Plus nabbed her a cracked phone from some rich tit who’d dropped it and was gonna toss it. Didn’t have to pay anybody for that. Besides, it’s not like I didn’t get the money back.”

“Alright, I’ll bite” Dorian said as Sera put two boxes of cookies into the cart. “How so?”

“She was working at a coffee place, yeah? I’d go over once or twice a month to check up and whatever and she’d give me coffee and day-olds. Plus, once her and fancypants started knocking boots, she talked about what the whole mess of the inquisition was up to. It’s not complicated. I did something for her, she’s grateful, she does stuff for me. Quid pro whatever.”

“You do that sort of thing often, then?” Dorian asked.

“Whenever I can, yeah. I have the truck from someone I helped out of the carta years back, she’s lending it for a weekish.” Sera said this as if helping someone escape international smuggling rings was as simple as picking between kinds of bottled water. Simpler, even, if the way she was frowning at the cases, hands on her hips, was any indication of difficulty.

“That’s… sort of brilliant, actually.” Dorian said in astonishment. “How many people owe you.”

Sera groaned in frustration “I knew it!” She said “You’re complicating it! It’s simple, I help people who need helping, they help me help people later. It’s not about people _owing_. I helped her because she needed helping, not because I was thinking about her _owing.”_

She dropped the case of water into the cart with an almighty crash, making Dorian wince away from the noise. She was still scowling as she turned to walk towards the cash register. Dorian hurried to push the cart after her.

“I stand corrected, then.” Dorian said.

“What, really?” Sera asked. “Are you having me on?”

“Not in the slightest.” Dorian said. “Is it really that simple?”

“Could be. Sure. Why not? Not everything has to be all Orlesian masks and talking but not saying and shite.” She began unloading the cart at the cash, and grabbed three packs of mint gum off the opposite rack “People’s people, but everyone forgets that all over the place. You treat people like people like people, they treat you back. Who knew?”

“I-Fair enough, I suppose.” Dorian said. He was silent for a moment as the late-night cashier checked them through. “Are her and Ambassador Montilyet really-“

“Her and Josie? With their bits in their bits? I hope so, they've been after each other long enough. Little bit too much talking around each other, those two. But she’s good for her, from what I’ve heard, whichever way around. Arianna seems happy enough, anyway. And good for her! Help me carry these.”

Sera grabbed a pair of plastic grocery bags and made her way to the door, and Dorian followed with the pallet of water bottles.

“Why do you care, anyway?” She asked, which was fair, Dorian supposed.

“Idle curiosity of someone who just spent three hours in the back of a truck with nothing to do and only total strangers to do it with.” He said, and nearly convinced himself.

“Yeah, how’d you end up in the truck, actually?” Sera asked. “Rest of them is clear enough, but you’re a surprise.”

“I endevor to be.” Dorian said. “Being expected is such a cliché. I strive to do better.”

“Alright, snooty” Sera said “Coulda just said you didn’t want to say.”

Dorian sighed. “I was there warning them about the imminent destruction of their headquarters, if you must know." He admitted "Not that it prevented anything, but I came in time to get them out the backdoor at any rate.”

Sera snickered. “I bet you got them through the backdoor just in time.”

“Quite.” From her answering cackle, he was reasonably sure she heard the grin in his voice.

The walk back to the truck was one of the more singular moments in Dorian’s life, perhaps because it felt so normal. There he was, in the middle of the Ferelden highland walking in companionable silence with a truck-driving elf, bringing food to a southern templar, a qunari and a pair of Dalish elves, among others. And all this after fleeing for his life from his own countrymen the night before. They had no plan, no destination, rouge bands of Templars still stalked the streets of Ferelden shooting anything that even looked magical and he still wasn’t entirely sure the Inquisition wouldn’t try to arrest him when they got wherever it was they were going. Sera pounded the back of the door, and The Iron Bull opened the drop door and helped her up. He turned do the same for Dorian, but exclaimed first, and pointed back across the parking lot behind them. Dorian turned.

Beyond the rolling farmland of the hinterlands, the sun was rising.

“It’s a brave new world, Dorian Pavus” He muttered to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sera's very intensive to write my god. I love her, but oh my god it's hard to get in her head. 
> 
> Next chapter: Arianna again? Probably?


	15. Returns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last of the immediate aftermath of Haven

  

Josephine had her laptop open on her knees, plugged into a power bar that Sera had strung from the cigarette lighter in the cab of the truck into the back, to the relief of all the truck’s occupants. It was sometime after noon, and even as Josephine was attempting to steer the discussion about the destruction of the inquisition’s headquarters. In addition to the actual news footage of the collapse of the building, there was an alarming amount of cell-phone documentation of their flight through Haven. More and more amateur footage had found its way online over the past several hours, including one three-second clip taken out an apartment window of Arianna pushing Josephine out of the way of the Terror. She had been unable to prevent twitter from dubbing Arianna Ink!Mage, and later simply Ink, but they at least so far they were considering her a hero and not a villain.

To her immediate right, Arianna was still unconscious. Pale, in the middle of a bloodstain and bereft of a clothing she could wear in public without causing alarm, but still, thank the maker, breathing. Josephine pulled Lavellan’s jacket a little higher around Arianna’s shoulders before returning to an email addressing the mayor of Haven. Lavellan himself was still asleep; presumably a combination of both magical exhaustion as well as the mundane variety. He was propped half-sitting against one of the walls, closer to Josephine and her co-workers than the Chargers and hangers-on of the inquisition, who were playing cards and eating near the cab of the truck. Cassandra was leafing through some of the documents they had saved, trying to determine what they needed to replace, when Lavellan’s phone buzzed on the floor beside her.

Too long for a text message; someone attempting to call him, then. Josephine looked up and locked eyes with Cassandra, who was sitting next to the phone. They stared at it as it vibrated angrily on the ground.

“Should I…?” Cassandra asked.

Josephine was about to respond when the call timed out.

                “If it was important,” Josephine said with more surety that she felt. “They will leave a message.”

                Cassandra seemed satisfied, and Josephine returned to her attention to her laptop. Less than a full minute later, the phone buzzed again. Josephine and Cassandra locked eyes again. Cassandra picked it up after a moment and stared at the screen as if it was liable to explode in her face.

                “Is there caller identification?” Josephine asked.

                “The name has a heart next to it.” She Cassandra replied, in a tone of horror.

There was a beat as the phone rang out again, and they were left in silence. The both it. Just as suddenly as it had stopped, the phone buzzed again.

Cassandra looked up at Josephine imploringly. Josephine sighed, and held out her hand for the phone.

“Alright,” Josephine said “I will take the call for First Lavellan.”

Cassandra handed it over gratefully, and pulled herself towards Josephine as she slid the icon across the screen to answer the phone.

“Hello?” She asked.

“Vhena- who is this?” The voice on the other end demanded. It belonged to a woman with the same accent as First Lavellan, beyond that, Josephine couldn’t tell.

“This is Josephine Montelyet, of the inquisition. May I ask who I am speaking with?”

“Where is Veranthis?”

“Sleeping, currently” Josephine said. “He is quite exhausted.”

There was silence on the other line, for a moment. Josephine could hear the woman breathing, transmitted through fits and starts of static.

“I don’t believe you.” She said, her voice suddenly cold.

“I-I beg your pardon?” Josephine said.

“I don’t believe you.” She repeated. “He would have checked in, before this. I don’t believe you, shemlen.”

“I don’t-“

“If you are keeping him from communicating…” the voice trailed off, shooting for menace and landing somewhere near terrified.

“I have said only the truth.” Josephine reassured her. “Is there something I may do to convince you? I mean no disrespect.”

                 Another few breaths on the other end of the line. Cassandra put one ear closer to the phone, which Josephine obligingly angled towards her.

                “Show me. The phone has a camera, turn it on.”

                “Alright.” Josephine pulled the phone from her ear. “I am going to put you on speaker.”

“Fine.” Came the tinny voice, projected from the phone. “Show me my husband.”

“Your husband!” Cassandra exclaimed in alarm.

“Yes, I said my gods damned fool of a husband.” She replied. “Show me where he is.”

Josephine stood up with the phone, and carefully made her way to the part of the truck where Lavellan was resting. The exclamation of relief as Lavellan came into frame would have been audible even if she was not on speakerphone.

“Vhenan!”

The phrase jerked Lavellan out of his sleep and, grumbling, he rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands.

“Oh, Mythal’s blessings, you’re alive!”

“Lyn’la?” He said, voice still thick with sleep. “What-“

“We thought you dead, when we saw the news.” She steamrolled over his tired greeting. “The Inquisition gone, and all of Redcliffe not speaking, and no news from you we assumed the worst.”

“Ma’lath,” Lavellan said, and grasped for the phone in Josephine’s hands. Josephine handed it over immediately. “I am safe. It is good to hear your voice.”

He fumbled with the screen, and suddenly it burst into light. A woman with Dalish tattoos and a stress indentation between her eyebrows appeared. Behind her, Josephine could just make out a variety of RVs parked in what looked like an open feild.

“Lyn’la.” Lavellan said again, relief etched into every line of him. “It is good to see you.”

The woman on the screen, Lyn’la, was about to reply when a child barreled into her side.

“Baela!” She screeched at the phone

“Da’len!” Lavellen exclaimed. “Look at you! You are so tall!”

“I will leave you to it.” Josephine said, and tugged Cassandra away by her elbow as they began to talk in fragmented Elven.

“Lavellan is _married?”_ Cassandra hissed at her “With _children?”_

“So it would seem.” Josephine said dryly.

“You are not upset that he kept this from us?” Cassandra asked

“I have not spoken to him of my own personal life” Josephine replied “Neither have you, I wager. Is it so shocking that he has done the same?”

Cassandra looked as though she was going to object again, before visibly swallowing her words. She settled for huffing at Josephine, before returning to the documents they had saved from Haven.

Josephine sat down again with her laptop. Before she opened it, she glanced over at Arianna briefly. As if on cue, Arianna’s eyelids fluttered, clenched tight, and then opened blearily up at her.

“-ephine?” She mumbled.

“Arianna,” Josephine said, relieved beyond all reason “Welcome back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised Arianna, so Arianna you get! And idk why man, but I just really like the idea of Dad!Lavellan with a family back in the clan.


	16. Reactions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arianna deals with waking up

With Josephine’s help, Arianna pulled herself up to a sitting position against the wall of the truck. Even with assistance, the effort left her breathing heavily. Josephine politely pretended not to notice as Arianna regained her composure and did a quick physical inventory. There was dried blood all along one side of her shirt, and crusted onto her back and her pants, making them stiff and itchy. She parted one of the holes in the side of her shirt, and caught a glimpse of three red angry lines of new scar tissue. She hurriedly let the shirt fall closed again.

“How are you feeling?” Josephine asked softly.

Arianna shrugged, and pulled Lavellan’s coat tighter around her shoulders.

“Can I get you something to eat?” Josephine asked. “To drink?”

Arianna hesitated a moment.

“My bag.” She said eventually. “Change of clothes in it.”

Josephine nodded, and pulled the bag over. She opened the front flap and pushed it up against Arianna’s knees. Arianna emptied the pockets of her now-ruined wool coat into the front pockets of the bag, putting her fake ID and her Inquisition issued ID in two different pockets. Her cracked phone and small roll of cash she simply put on the floor beside her, planning to keep it in the pockets of whatever clean clothing she put on.

She peered into the bag itself, and frowned slightly at the bag’s contents. It contained two stale muffins from Skyhold, her other pair of jeans, her work shirt and her sweater. Her laundry was still in the Inquisition headquarters when they had to flee, and she mentally wrote off the two pairs of socks and underwear that had been drying in her bathroom. For that matter, her toothbrush as well. She pulled out the shirt and pants and laid them beside her, before closing her bag again.

She turned around to face the wall to maintain all the privacy she could while she changed. Getting her shirt off was a trial and a half, when she couldn’t extend her left arm above her head without her entire side screaming in agony. Josephine hovered, but didn’t take over, for which Arianna was grateful. The collar of the shirt eventually popped over her head, and Arianna had to stop to rest a moment before she kept going.

She let her eyes fall closed as she tried to steady her breathing, her hands bunched in the ruined shirt in her lap. Cold fingers brushed her shoulder and Arianna flinched violent, toppling away from Josephine.

She landed on her good side, thank the maker, but her efforts to get her breathing under control were shot to hell. Her heart was racing, her hands were shaking and she couldn’t get enough _air_. Flinching was stupid, so stupid, she hadn’t flinched like that since she was still an apprentice, she _knew_ better. She could still salvage this, she thought. She put her hands out to either side of her on the floor, not moving, not threatening, and braced for whatever was coming next.

The hand on her shoulder again, and this time Arianna didn’t flinch, didn’t move a single inch.

She was still shaking.

“Arianna?” The hand moved from her hand to her chin, and Arianna closed her eyes as it directed her face upwards.

“Arianna,” There were two hands now, one on either side of her face, holding her there. “Arianna, look at me.”

She wanted to run, to hide, but it would be worse if she did so much worse but at least she could keep her eyes shut throughout whatever was going to happen next.

Despite her efforts to keep herself under control, tears started leaking out of her eyes.

There was a sharp gasp and the hands vanished. Arianna let herself collapse inwards, hands clutched tight around her middle, and she pulled her knees up and tucked her head in.

Someone yelled in alarm, and then there was banging, and then the world lurched alarmingly. Arianna threw one hand out to her side to catch herself, and her entire left side screamed in protest. She managed to keep her outward response to a grimace and a whimper.

There were hands again, under her arms and around her shoulders and she squeezed her eyes tighter shut and ducked her head but did not fight as they pulled her to her feet and started marching her. Almost as soon as it started, they sat her down and let her go. Arianna tucked her hands around her sides in an effort to prevent them putting her in restraints. There was a shuffling, and some yelling before the noise cleared away. Arianna hunched again reflexively as someone stepped in front of her, casting a shadow.

“Arianna” they said. Not ‘Trevelyan’, at least, which was a good start. “Arianna, do you know where you are?”

She ducked her head further down and didn’t respond. She was trembling beneath the coat. The person sighed, Arianna heard them sit down not across from her, but beside her.

“That’s alright.” They said. “Do you mind if I smoke, while we’re doing this?”

She shook her head.

“Thanks.” There was the flick of a lighter beside her, and then the smell of cigarette smoke. “You’re in a truck, about a day’s drive north of Haven. You, me, and everyone else the Inquisition was looking after had to leave in a hurry last night. Do you remember that?”

Arianna nodded.

“That’s good. Hang on to that.” Lavellan ( _Lavellan_ was the person talking to her,) took another drag of his cigarette.

“You took a really nasty hit from a terror demon last night, that’s why your side hurts.” He continued. “You’ve been asleep most of the day. Try to remember where you are.”

Arianna took a deep breath, and then another. Tried to steady her hands. Lavellan seemed content to simply sit out of arms reach on one side of her and smoke his cigarette, while Arianna shook her way back into real life. It was several minites before she opened her eyes.

She was sitting on the tailgate of Sera’s truck, the back door open, displaying a view of empty highway and a stretch of Ferelden farmland. She could see the outline of Bull's horn's down the road; they had taken a walk to give her space.

“What-?”

“What happened?” Lavellan finished for her. “Don’t know what set it off, but you went into a panic. Didn’t know where you were, couldn’t speak, hyperventilating, the whole deal. Nasty one, by the look of it.”

Arianna frowned, and flexed her fingers. They still felt slightly disconnected from the rest of her body.

“I had these under control.” She said. “Haven’t had one in months. Not one set off that easily. I thought I was past this.”

Lavellan hummed. “You were hurt pretty badly.” He said. “Probably just a throwback reaction. You’re still in survival mode, as far as your body’s concerned.”

Arianna let out a single, shaky laugh and buried her head in her hands. “So I have to deal with these all the time again?”

Lavellan shrugged. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Hard to tell with this sort of thing though.” He took one last inhale off of his cigarette and then used a tiny pinch of ice to put it out.

“That said, I’ve never seen a mage panic like that and not use any magic. Not a single accidental spark. That’s very impressive self-control.”

“Reaching for magic every time you panic gets you smote, when you’re young, or shot, if you’re older.” Arianna said. “The instinct gets trained out of you pretty quickly.”

Lavellan stared at his cigarette butt as though he was considering relighting it, before visibly deciding against it, and tucking the half-smoked end behind his ear.

“How’s your side?” He said instead.

It ached, and she couldn’t move her left arm without shooting pains, not to mention the fact that she barely had the strength to stand on her own. “I’ll manage.”

Lavellan gave her a look which made it clear he didn’t believe her. “I’ll have to look at it at some point soon, but in-between then and now, if it gives you trouble, ice your hand and tuck it in there. Let me know when you’re ready for an actual check-up.”

He stood up, stretched, and offered her a hand up back into the truck.

“For now, let’s just get you a shirt.”

“Oh.” Arianna looked down, at the coat that hung loosely off her shoulders over her bra. “I kind of forgot about that.”

Lavellan grinned, but not mockingly.

“I figured. We’re going to have to stop this evening somewhere where we can actually take a shower, but a clean shirt in the meantime can’t hurt. C’mon.”

She got to her feet, still clutching the jacket around herself, and accepted his help back into the truck. By the time the inquisition got back, she was dressed, fed, and very nearly feeling like herself again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone had a great halloween!


	17. Qunari Foreign Policy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bull, Varric and Arianna go for the throat in a game of cards. Also, Dorian is the fourth player.

Arianna could not move without pain. She couldn't get from one end of the truck to another by herself. She could not stand, or walk, or even lay down without assistance.

She could, however, still play a mean hand of wicked grace.

“I’m not sure why you expected differently,” She said, raking in the pieces of paper they were using as chips. “You think we never played cards in the circle?”

“Played cards, sure,” Varric said, regarding her with amusement. “It's that the cards were cutthroat, no-holds-barred high stakes grace, that's a bit of a suprise.”

Arianna shrugged and shuffled the deck together.

“Gambling was forbidden, obviously, not that it stopped anything. We all just played for favours instead. Leave this door unlocked, put in a good word with this enchanter, move me up on the hold list for that book, all of that.”

She began dealing the cards to Varric, Bull and Dorian around their loose circle. “One of the formari in my circle made the _best_ moonshine. Hid the still up a rafter somewhere, so the rumor went. I once won a full bottle off her in a game of wicked grace.”

“Drunkenness, gambling, mages able to hold an intelligent conversation,” Dorian said, picking up his cards “You are quite destroying my image of the southern circles.”

“You haven’t used blood magic or started an orgy yet, and you blaspheme less than Varric, so I’ll return the compliment.” Arianna replied, and set the deck back down with a gentle thump. “Nothing like a Tevinter magister so far.”

Bull laughed.

“I never heard anything coming out of Ostwick circle, while I was in Kirkwall.” Varric said. “No riots, no demon infestations, nothing. Nice circle?”

“That’s just Kirkwall.” Arianna said bluntly.

Varric sighed. “Just once, it’d be nice if that were a compliment.”

“Well- we had one riot, while I was there.” She corrected, re-arranging her mediocre hand. “Although, Kirkwall actually caused that, come to think of it.”

“Of course it did.” Varric said. “Tell me up front; was Hawke involved personally?”

“Yeah.”

“Of course she was. What happened.”

“It was, what, four, five years ago?” Arianna said, “Summer of the Qunari uprising. We’d been keeping an eye on the situation in Kirkwall, y’know, since we were just up the coast.”

"You and half the continent,” Bull grumbled. “Still don’t know what the damn Arishok was thinking.”

“So we’d been following it, reading articles and reports and everything, right?” Arianna continued. “And then, in the middle of the night, they blare the alarm, haul everybody out of bed. All of a sudden everyone licenced to hold a staff is assembled in the cafeteria, watching the news. Live! Live news, in the circle! The only other time they had done that I can remember is the battle of Denerim at the end of the blight.”

“That’s horrifying, but continue.” Dorian said.

“Right, so we’re all watching the news, of the Qunari sweeping through Kirkwall, all the fires in the slums. Lots of shock and very little information until it cuts to someone’s cellphone footage inside the City Hall, where-“

“Where Broody convinced Hawke to fight the Arishok one-on-one.” Varric finished for her.

“Yeah. The whole cafeteria was rumblinng, right, when they announced that. And then she lit her hands on fire and all of a sudden, drop-dead silence.”

“She always did have a flare for the dramatic.”

“It worked.” Ariana said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard the hall so quiet as it was when we were watching that fight. We started cheering, yelling, really. And then _Stannard_ of all people, declares a mage the champion of Kirkwall. Merridith Stannard!”

Arianna shook her head. “It was unbelievable. The riot was put down pretty fast, but still. An apostate, champion of a state. First time we’d ever heard of anyone except the Dalish or Tevinter raising mages outside circles, and she’s the Champion? Not a blood mage, or an abomination, but a _Champion_? Declared by the _Knight-Commander_? Unbelievable. Of course we rioted.”

“I’d apologise on her behalf, but I think she’d actually just find this funny.” Varric said.

“Your friend single-handedly doubled the escape attempts out of Ostwick for the next few months.” Arianna said angrily. “I lost an apprentice that way. Thought he could be an apostate like the great Champion of Kirkwall and turned to blood magic to get himself out. Your friend inspired him to sell himself to a demon and he didn’t even make it past the second fence.”

She tossed her cards down in her lap and scrubbed at her face. Varric’s friendly, joking smile had curdled on his face. Whatever air of comradrie they had been building was dead, and Arianna had killed it.

“I’m sorry,” Arianna said, staring up at the ceiling. “That’s not fair. It’s not her fault. But he was my third.”

“You lost your third apprentice?” Dorian asked. He sounded sympathetic, gentle, as if loosing your third aprentice was a the worst wound he could possibly imagine.

“Jonathan was the third apprentice I _lost_.” Arianna corrected. “He was my _seventh_ apprentice. I lost one other to her harrowing, and they always make your first Tranquil. I graduated seven out of ten apprentices during my tenure, which is about the average.”

Dorian stared at her with naked horror written across his face. “You lose a full third of your mages to their harrowings?” he asked “Actually, nevermind that, what on  
earth do you mean they always brand your first apprentice?”

“Makes a sort of sense.” Bull said. “Keeps you from getting too close to your later apprentices, teaches you you’re not infallible. Probably gave the first-timers the ones they were planning to cull anyway. That’s how I’d do it.”

Bull’s matter-of-fact explanation deeply unsettled her. For all of his friendliness, she had almost forgotten that the mages he knew were bound, gagged and drugged stupid as a matter of course. Varric had, if the stories were to be believed, spent the last ten years in the company of three apostates. Dorian was a mage himself. Bull, on the other hand had cussed out tevinter magic, fought the magisterium and refused to acknowledge that he worked with a mage.

“No way to raise kids, but a hell of a way to keep their parents in line.” Bull continued. “Built in hostages. Especially if you can make ‘em tranquil. Still useful, and hanging around to remind them of the consequences of fucking up.”

“It’s a hell of a way to get enchanters to kill ourselves, is what it is.” Arianna surprised herself by saying. “Get you to work with a kid for a year and then kill them and parade their corpse around in front of you? My apprentice got a fate worse than death because I was _new_ , Bull, in what world is that justifiable?”

Bull looked at her in surprise “Hey, I’m not saying it’s right I’m just saying it makes sense. No-one does anything that doesn’t make sense to them. You just have to figure out who it’s making sense for. Once you have an organization trying to make sense, everything falls into place. It’s tons of people all trying to make their own sense is when everything gets shitted up. That’s what’s wrong on Seheron. That’s why Orlais is the way Orlais is. Everyone trying to do the shit that only makes sense for them.”

“The circles aren’t the solution” Arianna said. “They can’t be. Not the way they are. They don’t make sense for _anyone_  anymore. I don’t know if they ever did.”

“Well, yeah.” Bull said, picking up his cards again. “That’s the whole reason we’re here, isn’t it?”

Arianna fiddled at her cards, and then picked them up again, righting them in her hand as she went.

“Yeah. I guess it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bull's individuality thing will never not be facinating to me. Ever ever. 
> 
> Also, There's no way Dorian was holding his own in that game of cards, but they let him keep playing for fun anyway.


	18. Guilty Consciences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassandra and Arianna go over some documents for the Inquisition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, HEAVILY IMPLIED offscreen rape in this chapter, by and to unnamed characters just so y'all know. Skip to "We missed this" if you don't want to read that.

By three in the afternoon, the activity in the truck had settled into a lull. Arianna leant into Josephine’s side, half paying attention to the emails, tweets and anonymous comments she sent out over a half dozen accounts and dozens of websites. Lavellan had returned to sleep, and Bull was spending time with his chargers. Varric had escaped into the cab of the truck with Sera, and Arianna was deeply wary of leaving the two of them alone together. Dorian was being questioned by Leliana and Cullen, to try to wring any possible clue as to the Mage’s whereabouts from him. So far, all they knew was that the boat was large, Tevinter in make, and had left the Redcliff docks at 8 in the morning, while the truck which held the battered members of the inquisition was still winding down the foothills of the Frostbacks.

Arianna was desperately trying not to think about how many of the mages on that boat were people that she knew.

Instead, at Lelianna’s request, she was pouring through the reports they had rescued from Haven to find inconsistencies or euphemisms for acts that words like ‘neutralized’ or ‘corrected’ scarcely conveyed in print. Arianna’s annotations were less prolific than she had imagined, if only because this particular report had no qualms about putting “Disciplinary action: 18 wk solitary confinement” in writing. Arianna pushed down the queasy feeling in her gut as she circled the name of the Templar who assigned it, his eighth appearance in the report so far. In addition to the sheer number of assigned punishments, the Templar only occasionally listed the infractions which provoked his wrath.

She put the pen between her teeth and began to scan the rest of the document for this name in particular. After several pages of frequent apperence, his name disappeared from the recod altogether.

“Cassandra?”

Cassandra looked up from her own stack of papers, brow still stuck in its concentrated furrow.

“Do you have transfer records in there anywhere?”

“One moment.” Instead of rummaging through the box of files, she pulled a small tablet out of a briefcase. “Mage transfers or Templar transfers?”

“Templars.”

Cassandra clicked an icon and handed the tablet across the mosaic of papers on the floor to her.

Arianna scrolled through the list, and then scowled at it.

“Incident reports in here too?”

“There are, yes.” Cassandra said cautiously. “What are you looking for?”

Arianna scrolled through the dated reports, and pulled up one detailing a lyrium mishap resulting in an explosion in the storeroom: One casualty. A tight smile pulled at the edges of her mouth, and she turned the tablet back around to face Cassandra.

“Looking for a murder. Found one, too.”

“What?” Cassandra reached for the tablet, and scanned the report. Arianna watched her take in the photographs of the damage. “What makes you sure this was intentional?”

“Nearly every part of it.” Arianna carefully moved around so she was sitting beside Cassandra on the floor, placing both the disciplinary records and the tablet containing the incident reports on the ground in front of them. She pointed at the tablet.

“Everyone knows that the Templars smuggle Lyrium out of the circles, and since nearly every harrowed mage has access to stores for experiments, all it would take is learning one person’s routine to be able to set a trap. It’s notoriously volatile, so this probably wouldn’t have even tripped that many flags.”

Cassandra stared at the tablet as though she could bore holes in the photographs. Arianna realised abruptly that it was simply her concentrating face, not a furious one.

“Premeditated murder, in the first degree. From within the circle itself.” She picked up the tablet and examined it more closely, eyes flitting back and forth across the screen. “How did you catch this, when the circle itself did not?”

“I’m sure they did. The investigation would have been messier than it was worth though, especially since his death was in the lyrium stores to begin with." Arianna pulled up the disciplinary records, and indicated the web of lines she had drawn connecting his reports.

“Solitary confinement imposed at nearly twice the usual rate, with less than half the usual recorded justification. The ones without reason are all female, all between sixteen and twenty. Some more than once.” She gave the papers a sharp tap, straightening them out before she handed them to Cassandra.

“Any official investigation would have turned that up, so instead they ruled it an accident and pushed it under the rug.”

She looked up to see Cassandra gripping the tablet so hard the case was bending. Arianna tried to lean back without aggravating her side.

“We missed this.” Cassandra said, voice tight.

“The murder?”

“The murder, the concealment, the corruption, the abuse,” Cassandra tossed the tablet on the ground in front of them, where it threw several papers into disarray. “This is what the Seekers are _for_ , Trevelyan. We are intended to be a check on the Templars, to assist them in tracking the most dangerous apostates. And for what? We failed to find an apostate openly working in Kirkwall, publishing _manifestos_ before he committed an act of terrorism, and the Templar order concealed their malignancy to the extent we did not realise there was a problem at all until they ceded from the Chantry.”

She pressed her thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose, as though attempting to halt a migraine.

“We should have known. We should have been able to prevent the revolt, the chaos that followed. It was our _duty,_ and we have _failed.”_

Arianna stared in silence as Cassandra massaged her temples. She had started the night in a full pantsuit, and had shed pieces until all that remained was her white camisole, dress slacks and shoulder holster. Her order’s symbol, the great flaming eye of the Maker, was displayed proudly in ink on one shoulder, with two dates a year apart inscribed below.

“Do you know what truly started the mage rebellions?”

“I woke one night to my circle on fire and spent the next two months in the wilderness of the Marches" Arianna "By the time I could check the news, the time had passed. So, not really, actually.”

Cassandra sighed. “It wasn’t Kirkwall, precisely. Not only Kirkwall, I should say. What finally began the rebellion was the discovery that the rite of tranquillity could be reversed. The Lord seeker attempted to cover it up, harshly, but word escaped.  It was those deaths, that knowledge, in addition to Kirkwall, that started the rebellion.”

Arianna stared at her, dumfounded. “You can- there’s a way to reverse it?”

“It is not without its risks, but yes: there is a way. It is, I have recently discovered, part of Seeker training. I was made tranquil for a year and did not even know. I had thought it a vigil.” Cassandra scoffed low in her throat and shook her head.

“I had thought to rebuild the Seekers, after my time with the Inquisition. Now, I am unsure.”

She dropped her hand again. Indecision sat strangely on Cassandra’s shoulders, hunched and deeply uncomfortable. Arianna simply sat in stunned silence, wrestling with nearly every revelation Cassandra had just exposed. Cassandra cleared her throat.

“What will you be doing, when this is all over?” It was an obvious, desperate attempt to change the topic, but Arianna took it gratefully.

“Assuming the circles aren’t re-instated and I don’t flee to Antiva?” she scratched at her scalp with her pen. “I don’t know. I was pretty good at making muffins at Skyhold; maybe I’ll make pastries.”

That startled a laugh out of Cassandra. “Run a bakery? A mage?”

“Why not?” Arianna said a little defensively

“No, my apologies” She was still smiling, threatening to break into laughter again “It was simply an unexpected answer. I read your file, after all; you wouldn’t continue teaching, as you did in the circle?”

“No. Not if I have a choice in the matter. Never again.”

“Ah.” Seven out of ten hung in the air between them, a spectre and a condemnation. Seven out of ten, seven out of ten; Arianna’s telltale heartbeat of JonathanSybalKatherine made suddenly uncomfortably public.

“For what it’s worth” Cassandra said “I always enjoyed the desserts Josephine brought in.”

“Fifteen percent off, for other former members of the Inquisition.” Arianna offered. Cassandra smiled out of the corner of her mouth, as though she wasn’t quite sure she should be enjoying the conversation.

“Only if you continue to make those miniature egg tarts.”

"You drive a hard bargain Seeker."

"Cassandra."

"Cassandra. Arianna."

"Arianna."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter for y'all, in my grand tradition of one-in-the-morning updates. 
> 
> I should warn you lovely folks that I am about to descend into Essay Hell (tm) for the next few weeks until the end of term, so you should expect slow (once a week or less) updates until probably the second week of December. Not a hiatus, if I can help it, but a definite slowdown.


	19. New Avenues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang gets to redcliffe, and there is news

At six thirty five that night, the produce truck containing the entire Inquisition ground to a halt just outside the gates of Haven.

“Hey you lot, Inquisition!” Sera pounded on the metal siding of the truck to get everone’s attention before tossing the back door of the truck wide open “We’re walkin from here.”

Arianna looked up at up as the truck began to pack up around her; papers laptops and phones being stuffed back into pockets and bags. Cassandra glared resentfully at her suit jacket, still covered in dust from the catacomb tunnels, before pulling it back on over her shoulders. She fastened a single button in the middle, and smoothed it over her hip where the outline of her service pistol was visible.

“You’re out, though.” Arianna reminded her. “We don’t have any bullets left after we got out of Haven.”

Cassandra raised an eyebrow. “Those who have guns pointed at them,” she said “seldom stop to ask themselves whether or not the gun is loaded.”

Arriana felt her mouth pull into a grimace almost involuntarily.

“Come now,” Cassandra said, pulling the strap of her briefcase over one shoulder and offering Arianna a hand up. “It is not as though any individual who warrants having a gun drawn on them on your behalf is going to be of the entirely savoury sort anyway.”

Arianna accepted her hand up, and went along with it as Cassandra’s hauled one of Arainna's arm over her shoulders to support her. “I still don’t have to like it.”

Cassandra looked at her as though she was a particularly stubborn child. “It is for your protection.”

“I’ve had way too many people with guns say they wanted to protect me, thanks.”

“Ah.” Cassandra looked away even as she helped Arianna make her way down the steps out of the truck.

“Surely, you don’t mean to conflate me and-“

“Look, can we just drop it?” Arianna sucked one deep breath in and blew it out again. The fingers of the hand not wrapped around Cassandra’s iron shoulders was jittering against her thigh. “I know it’s stupid. I just really don’t like guns, alright? Especially service weapons.”

“But-“

“Please? I really don’t want to talk about this.”

Cassandra scowled, but returned her attention to the road up to Redcliffe. The barricade halting their advance was nothing more than several rolls of chain-link fence, melted messily straight into the the road.

Bull had employed the help of Dalish and Dorian to soften the asphalt while he and Cullen pried a path through the centre.

Josephine made her way over to them, turning away from her phone to address them directly only at the last moment.

“I have news.”

“Good or bad?” Cassandra asked.

Josephine gave a tiny shrug, splaying her hands before clasping them over her phone in front of her again. “I don’t know yet.”

Leliana joined them from the other side, arms crossed over her chest, jaw set. In the late afternoon sunlight she looked washed out and pale. She also looked livid. “Me either. That’s what worries me.”

From in front of them, the rusted metal fence gave one final groan as Bull wrenched it from the road. He guffawed, and slapped Dorian on the back so hard he nearly face planted into soft asphalt.

“Well then?” Cassandra said. “What news is it?”

“The boat’s no going to Tevinter.” Leliana said, still glaring right ahead. “It’s going upstream to Orlais, and I don’t know why.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, I am sorry. Lots of you probably think I've given up on this, and that's fair, but I do intend to continue. I think I've finally figured out how to get this monster to go where I want it to go. I know this is a short chapter, but stay tuned.


	20. Steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Through the town of Redcliffe

 

Redcliffe was a ghost town. The Inquisition picked its way down empty streets on high alert, but apparently needlessly. Cassandra, under Arianna’s arm, was growing tenser and tenser. They encountered no resistance, save a startled cat and some cars turned on their side in the middle of the road. Shopfronts were emptied, windows broken, but the glass had long since been cleared from the street. Despite this, there were signs that mage rebellion was starting to be actually at home in the town.

Behind some of the more passible barricades were chairs and tables, guard posts occupied with paperbacks, warm beers and decks of cards. Someone had decorated a row of trees by the side of the road with tatters of Circle uniforms, giving it a festive look. At the end of one alley stood a clothing mannequin in a Templar uniform; the condition of the walls around it suggested it had been used as target practice. One of the boarded up windows cheerfully proclaimed to be keeping its drinks cold with frost runes. Large spray-paint arrows directed pedestrians to the centre of town.

 Varric, arms crossed, was staring at a mural of Hawke someone had been halfway through painting on the side of a parking garage. In it, she was locked staff-to-shotgun with a figure that was unquestionably Meredith Stannard. The slogan below read ‘no Templars are good Templars’.

“Varric?” Cassandra called at him.

Varric shook his head at the mural, and made his way back to the group.

“I know it’s crappy luck to say out loud, but everyone is thinking it, so what the hell,” he said, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this Seeker.”

Bull snorted from the head of the line. “What he said.”

“I don’t like this either,” Arianna said, “The Rebels were only ever barely a unified force; even if Fiona told them all to go, some of them would have stayed. I can’t imagine all the circle rivalries got left behind when they got out of their circles.”

Josephine piped up from behind her “Did you mean rivalries within circles or rivalries between circles?”

“Both.” Arianna craned her neck over her shoulder to meet Josephine’s eyes. “Everyone has grudges and axes to grind. Someone was rude to your apprentices, or got the best supplies, or whatever. And we had to fight other circles for resource allocation every year, so there’s very little love between individual circles except between individual enchanters studying in the same field, and sometimes even that falls apart when one circle gets screwed over by another.”

“Doesn’t the chantry decide resource allocation?” Cassandra asked.

Arianna frowned. “Sort of? The First Enchanter and the night captain go every year to argue with the representative of the divine for updated equipment and whatever else. Any new equipment for you means less for everyone else. I was never part of that, I don’t really know how it works.”

Cassandra scowled.

Arianna felt her stomach turn. “That’s not how it’s supposed to work.”

“Decidedly not.”

“Ah.”

“Cassandra, may I take Arianna for a while?” Josephine asked, gliding up alongside them. “I feel as though I have not spoken to her in some time.”

“Oh.” Cassandra’s face cleared. “Yes of course. Allow me to-“ She carefully pulled Arianna’s arm from her shoulders and adjusted it instead around Josephine’s.

“Why don’t you go catch up with Bull?” Josephine asked, taking Arianna’s weight.

Cassandra nodded, and speed walked to the front of the line, pausing just once to kick an overflowing trashcan with enough force it toppled over. Josephine watched her until she fell into step beside Bull before turning back to Arianna.

“Are you all right?” Josephine “You were turning grey for a moment, should we stop?”

“I’m fine; whatever Lavellan’s doing is working. I can keep going.”

“That is not quite what I asked.” Josephine said.

“Cassandra is…” Arianna cast about for a way to describe it without sounding like a child. “She has a temper.”

“She does at that.” Josephine agreed wryly. “Apparently, she stabbed a copy of Varric’s ‘Tale of the Champion’ when she first brought him in for questioning.”

Arianna’s eyes widened.

“…And I have not reassured you at all. My apologies. Cassandra is a dear friend, and a deeply, vibrantly, passionate individual. She forgets, I think, how frightening that can be. If it is of any solace at all, she was angry on your behalf, not at you.”

“That’s not a gamble I’m willing to make.”

Josephine’s mouth twisted sadly, but she let the topic drop, and instead began a lively, one-way conversation about the sights of Antiva City until they arrived at the local highschool, used as a base for the Mage rebellion for the past year. Sera was already on one knee picking the lock to the door. Above the doorway was painted an upturned, fratured version of the sign of the circle of magi in bold bright blue and yellow. The last spray paint arrow was painted on the pavement directly in front of the main doors, and scrawled in the same paint in blockletters on the wall to the right was ‘Exultations, 1:10.’

“A chant verse?” Josephine asked.

“I covered my face, fearful.” Leliana answered, “But the lady took my hands from my eyes, saying ‘remember the fire. You must pass through it alone to be forged anew’.”

“It’s been the dogwhistle to help runaways find each other for ages.” Arianna said. She couldn’t prevent herself from reaching out to it slightly, just a quick tap. “So I’ve heard. The idea was, once you were through the flames, you wouldn’t have to be alone afterwards.”

“A lovely sentiment, if a dangerous one.” Leliana said.

“I’ve got the door open, are you all coming or not?” Sera hollered.

Leliana quirked an eyebrow at Arianna, and offered her what appeared to be a very nice staff for her free hand.

“Where?”

“Off of one of the guard posts. Someone had left it behind.” Leliana quirked an eyebrow. “What do you say; into the fires for us?”

Arianna took the staff from her hands and wrapped the strap around her wrist before grabbing the grip, feeling the connection to the fade drip through her veins like hot wax. She tipped her head back to savour the sensation, before realizing that Leliana was still waiting for a response.

“Out of the frying pan.” She agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know, I initially planned for Redcliffe inclusively to be a single chapter? Oh well.


	21. Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some unsavoury discoveries are made in Redcliffe.

“So,” Varric said, hands on his hips, staring at the spray-painted directory just inside the doors of Redcliffe High. “This feels too easy.”

“Don’t go askin for trouble” Sera warned. “The head of whoever set up in the office of this school, they just changed the hats around. Ain’t a surprise to see folks in charge being where they’re expected. Didn’t the same thing happen with the Arishwhoever in Kirkwall anyhow?”

“I mean, sure, but really. The principal’s office?”

“Something stinks.” Bull said suddenly.

His words pulled Leliana back to the present, after being distracted to a small monument the Redcliffe students who had lost their lives during the blight.

“I agree.” She said. “Who evacuates a town but leaves personal effects and valuables behind?”

“No, I mean something literally stinks, even beyond regular refugee camp funk.” Bull said. “Maybe the rest of you can’t smell it, but something’s rank in here.”

He swung his massive horns around, trying to catch the direction of it. He eventually pointed down the hallway to the left of the building. “This side of the school, I think.”

Cassandra and Leliana exchanged looks, and came to the sort of unspoken agreement made possible by spending years in constant communication.

“Cassandra will accompany you and the Chargers.” Leliana said. “The remainder of us will investigate the office.”

Bull was still staring down the hallway, stone-faced. “I want the ‘Vint too.”

Dorian visibly started. “What? I know my company is beyond compare, but-“

Bull turned to face him. Arianna didn’t Bull intended to be intimidating while staring down at him, but it certainly had that effect.

 “Arianna said your staff was about dead stuff, right?” Bull asked, “you know your way around a pile of corpses?”

“Ew.” Sera said.

“It is, I do,” Dorian said. “Wait, you don’t think-?”

“Dunno yet, but I want to be safe.” Bull turned, and started making his way down the hallway, and his entire squad had to hurry to keep up. Arianna watched them go, and felt her stomach sink slightly as they rounded the corner out of sight.

“The rest of us to the office, then?” Josephine said “If there’s any record of where they have gone, or how they were compelled to leave, it must be there.”

“This still feels too easy,” Varric said, as they pushed their way past the chicken wire inlaid safety glass into the administrative offices of the school. Stacks of paper and half-empty coffee mugs littered every available surface.

Josephine deposited Arianna gently in one of the wheeled office chairs, dropping a peck on her cheek almost absentmindedly as she followed Leliana into the interior offices. Varric started poking through the office bullpen.

“Does anyone else feel like this is fishy? I mean, really, look at this.”

Varric hopped into an office chair and wiggled a mouse; the screen jumped back to life, revealing that it hadn’t even been shut down properly. Displayed onscreen was a half-written email.

“No passcode, nothing.”

Arianna pushed herself off the wall, and rolled closer to Varric’s computer. “Anything interesting in the email?”

He squinted at the screen. “Nah. Looks like a personal letter. Sent to a hospital in northern Orlais.”

“Check the browser history.” Sera suggested, looking over from her systematic rummaging of the drawers in the office. She had so far turned up three granola bars, a keyring, a subway gift card and a pair of condoms.

Varric turned back to the screen. “Uh, internet history reads: news sites, news sites, hospital websites, cat video, news sites, email, what looks like a deeply exciting journey through wikipedia’s articles on the history of apostasy, google search for Anders, google search for Hawke, more news sites, another cat video.”

He pushed himself away from the desk, spinning in the office chair. “Hey Curly, you got anything better?”

Cullen was glaring at one of the other computers. He hadn’t bothered to sit down, simply hunched over a desk with a look of consternation on his face.

“I think so. I’ve got the security feed for the past week.”

Arianna used her staff to push her chair towards the computer Cullen was glaring at. “Check the feed for yesterday evening. That’s when they all should have been packing up, right?”

Cullen obediently pulled up the folder, and began tabbing back and forth between different cameras in the building. They revealed empty corridor after empty corridor after empty corridor. Hall ways and classrooms full of sleeping bags and makeshift beds, but empty of people.

“This can’t be right.” Cullen said, frown growing as each new angle reveled another empty room. “They didn’t leave Redcliffe until nearly 5 this morning, we have the satellite images to prove that.”

He tapped the arrow keys one more time, and this angle caught two figures hurrying down the hallway, ducking into a room at the end.

“Wait.” He checked the camera number against the map tacked up to the side of the cubicle, tapping his finger against the dot indicating the camera onscreen. “They’re going into the auditorium.”

Arianna leaned forward as he pulled up the feed for the auditorium, heedless of the way it pulled at her side. She was peripherally aware of Varric and Sera pausing to watch the screen as well, but Arianna was suddenly consumed with absolute, all-encompassing dread as Cullen searched for the file.

“Here-“ Cullen clicked the icon, and suddenly the screen was filled with the school’s auditorium.

Redcliffe high was a reasonably large school; pulling students from surrounding townships as well as the not inconsiderate number of students from the town proper, and the building had an auditorium sized to match. It was not a small room, and the auditorium onscreen was still packed well beyond capacity; people were sitting two to a chair, standing in the aisles and crowded up against the very edge of the stage. On stage, in grainy black and white and one-frame-a-second security camera stop-motion, a man was clearly speaking to the crowd. With a jolt, Arianna recognized the woman behind him, two steps back and to the left.

“That’s grand enchanter Fiona!” she jabbed her finger at the screen, leaving a greasy smudge.

“Shit,” Varric leaned forwards “She’s right. And I bet that’s our Tevinter magister giving the speech, then.”

On screen, the tiny black-and-white magister raised and lowered his arms. The gesture was made jerky by the jumpy film; he looked as though he was part of some clockwork show. As Arianna watched, the magister clearly concluded, and raised one arm out at the audience. The moment he did so, the audience was abruptly on their feet, streaming out of the auditorium, practically running, shoving one another in their haste to leave the auditorium.

“Wait.” Cullen’s brow furrowed, and he reversed the video, resuming it again for the last few seconds of the speech. He watched the video with all the focus of a predator, and then reversed it again, this time watching the magister’s speech frame-by-frame.

“Uh, Curly?” Varric asked, nearly nervous. “You know watching it again isn’t going to tell us what he said, right?” His attempt at humor fell completely flat, and Cullen clicked through the speech frame by frame again. Cullen flipped back and forth between two frames, causing the man’s arms to jerk around in a mute parody of an orchestra conductor. Cullen’s nose was maybe an inch away from the screen.

“He’s casting.” He said.

Arianna leaned all the way forwards, watching the magister’s form as he gave the speech again. Now that Cullen had pointed it out, there was no missing the shift of his feet, the movement of his hands, even without a staff.

“Maker.” Arianna said. “Those are necromancy forms; he’s casting a horror.”

Cullen shook his head. “That doesn’t make any _sense_. No staff, no lyrium, I don’t care how powerful a mage you are, you can’t hit that many targets with a horror all at once. I’ve seen a malificarum hit twenty-five at once, back in Kirkwall, but that was after bleeding two people nearly dry, and riding a lyrium high that could kill a horse.”

He pointed at the screen “There’s no-one bleeding near enough for him to use, and he leaves the stage under his own power. Even if he is a bloodmage, which I don’t doubt, there’s something else going on here.”

It was at this point that Bull and his squad rounded the corner. “I have news,” He said, “And no-one’s gonna like it.”

Just behind him was Dorian, whose normally smiling face was ashen, and Cassandra, who had fury and disgust fighting for control over her face. Bull tossed a pipe, a foot and a half long and cut at a sharp angle at one end to the floor. The pipe clattered ominously, and rolled around to reveal that the sharpened end was caked in blood.

“Blood magic.” Bull announced. “Over twenty five bodies in the locker room shower oldest one’s a bout a week old. From the looks of things, they were slow-bled one at a time. Someone stuck the pipe through their throat and let ‘em bleed out into the drain.”

“Andraste’s ashes.” Cullen had turned the colour of oatmeal. “What did they summon that needed to be bound with four lives a day?”

“For that matter, where is it?” Arianna asked “There was no demon on this side of the veil that we saw on the footage. What the hell deal has this magister made that made him powerful enough to cast a horror over two thousand other mages? Is that even possible?”

Dorian’s head jerked around. “What magister?” he demanded, “How do you know he’s casting a horror?”

“Here-“ Arianna pushed her chair to the side to allow him a spot between her and Cullen at the computer. “Watch his feet.”

Dorian stared at the screen, riveted, as Cullen clicked through frame-by-frame again, showing the unmistakable motions of casting.  A wrinkle appeared between Dorian’s eyebrows as he watched, and then seized the mouse and tabbed back and forth between two frames.

“That’s definitely a magister, but that’s not a horror exactly.” He said. “Strange to see without a staff, but that’s not casting, that’s activating an extant spell.” He said. “Look, the difference in the stance here? The horror’s already been laid; it’s the difference between wiring a building and flipping a switch. It’s as though he has them in thrall already.”

Arianna chewed her lip. “Is that possible? To have already put them in thrall, I mean?”

Dorian snorted, and straightened back up from the computer. “Not likely. He would either have had to ask them to all to please politely stand in line and wait their turn while he sold them over to a demon one by one, or somehow acquire a blood sample of every circle mage in the south.”

Arianna blanched, and turned to him. “How big would the blood sample have to be?”

“What?” Dorian said, looking at her in alarm “You can’t seriously think that someone was going through the refugee camp collecting blood or toenail clippings, do you?”

Cullen seemed to grasp Arianna’s idea, and turned to face Dorian as well. “How much? A few drops? A pint? Does it have to be fresh?”

Dorian looked at the two of them in alarm “In theory, it can be done with as little as ten millilitres. In practice, no-one has been able to produce reliable effects with anything less than thirty, and I cannot tell you more than this because I have no practical experience in the matter because I am not a _blood mage_.”

Cullen swore, and stormed away from the computer. Arianna’s grip on the table had tightened to the point where she couldn’t feel the tips of her fingers.

 “What is it?” Leliana and Josephine re-emerged from the principal’s office, drawn by the noise.

“I have no idea,” Dorian said. “Except that your commander and dear witness have become very interested in the exact volume of blood needed to put someone under thrall.”

Leliana’s attention was immediately on Dorian, laser focused in the way that must have made her a formidable reporter before she was the Divine’s left hand.

“More or less than a hundred and fifty millilitres?” She demanded.

“Oddly specific, far less, what on earth?”

Question satisfied, Leliana immediately moved on to Arianna. Alarmingly, Cullen followed her “Have you noticed anything?”

“Nightmares, that’s it!” Arianna blurted, hands raised in defense “Nothing more than usual, I must be out of range, nothing else, nothing while I was awake, I _swear_ -“

“If I may ask,” Dorian said, regarding the terrified tableau before him, “Why are you so interested in this hypothetical, extraordinarily unlikely explanation?”

“Phylacteries are just under a hundred and fifty millilitres,” Arianna said, “If this magister somehow broke into the warehouse in Denerim…”

“You could put every circle mage in Thedas under bloodthrall, and no-one would be the wiser.” Cullen concluded. “All you’d have to do in order to activate it would be to get them in the same room together.” He gestured to the security footage, where the magister onscreen raised his hands and the entire room rose in a panic.

“You could kidnap a thousand people at once, and they would think it was their own idea.”

Arianna watched a thousand mages push towards the exits of the auditorium in terror, each trying to be the first onto a ship into slavery. She pushed away from the desk and was abruptly sick into the trashcan under the desk.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Watch me play fast and loose with canon events and plot elements. FAST AND LOOSE, I say.


	22. Fears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josephine and Arianna have a conversation

“So, this is where you had gotten to.”

Arianna, started and looked up to see Josephine, who had been rendered soft and golden by the late afternoon light beside her in the Redcliffe shipyards. She gestured to the spot beside Arianna on the pier.

“May I?”

“Yeah of course, let me-“ Arianna pushed her bag away from the spot to her right, and spread her coat out on the damp concrete for Josephine to sit on.

“Thank you.”

She toed off her shoes and put them neatly side-by-side next to the edge of the coat, before sitting down beside Arianna, legs tucked away neatly to one side as though she were sitting for a portrait. Arianna bounced her heels against the side of the pier again, sneakers dangling well above the waterline.

The view from Redcliffe’s pier was the view of an industrial port; shipping docks and cranes dominated the shoreline as far as the eye could see, and the water was slick with oil and litter. The setting sun cast a warm golden glow on the water, nearly too brilliant to look at. Picked out in limned gold was the profile of Kinloch hold, on an island just across the water, in unmistakable detail.

Josephine, still in her blouse and pencil skirt, let out a deep sigh as laid her head on Arianna’s shoulder. She had, Arianna noticed, a run in her stockings.

“Do you remember,” Arianna asked suddenly. “The first night I stayed over at your apartment?”

Josephine nodded against her shoulder. “It was pouring that night; I could not have in good conscience turned you out into weather like that.”

“I remember how carefully you got ready in the morning.” Arianna said. “You had it down to a science. Clothes already ironed, picked out the night before, coffee on before you got in the shower, hair-dryer and makeup ready to go at the mirror, bag packed by the door.”

She picked a piece of stone out of Josephine’s hair, flicked it into the harbour.

“You simply sat in bed and watched.” Josie recalled. “I felt rather like I was putting on a one-man show.”

Arianna hummed. “It was nice. Normal. You had actual furniture instead of a just a microwave and a mattress on the floor. I remember thinking that your apartment was what normal looked like.”

Josephine pulled away from her. “Arianna, I feel I must apologise.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t think I truly grasp what I was asking of you when you signed on as the Inquisition’s witness. Please believe me, if I had any idea that it would put your life at risk-“

“You still should have done it.” Arianna bounced her heels against the side of the pier again, then looked up to meet Josephine’s eyes. “Besides, you didn’t even know you were asking _me_ to volunteer.”

“I would not have asked _anyone_ to put themselves in this position.” Josephine said vehemently “Least of all you. We barely gave you a chance to refuse, and you were nearly killed as a result, and now we have dragged you into the middle of what is turning into an international incident and potentially an active conflict zone.”

Only Josephine would use politically accurate language at a time like this.

“We promised you protection and instead you have nearly been killed on our- on _my-_ behalf. It is unforgivable.”

“You have, actually. Protected me, I mean.”

Josephine let out an entirely unladylike and very endearing snort. “Forgive me if I fail to see how dragging you into the public spotlight and into the path of demons qualifies as protection on our part.”

“Well, if I wasn’t with the Inquisition, I’d be on that boat myself. I’d say that counts.” She felt Josephine stiffen in alarm beside her.

“Arianna, what on earth?“

“Sera told me.” She said. “a pair of Tevinter men had been staking out my job for the past week. Maybe they wanted the Inquisition’s witness, maybe they just knew I was a circle mage, but either way Josie-“

She squeezed Josephine’s hand tighter in her lap.

“Josie, I was _so close_ to being on that boat, under that fucking spell, there was nothing I could have _done_ , if I got caught if I got dragged back to that I wouldn’t even have been able to scream I-“

Arianna took a deep breath and tipped her head up, willing herself not to cry.

“I’m so _tired_ of being scared all the time. It’s exhausting. I just want this all to be over, to stop having to look over my shoulder every day of my damn life and-“

Yeah, there it went, she was crying. “I hate it, I hate it and I can’t _stop being scared_ it’s too _useful_ , being scared was the only thing that _kept me off that boat_ and-“

Josephine said nothing, but pulled her down to rest her head on her shoulder and lay her arms around her back. Arianna wrapped her arms around Josephine’s middle, pulled her tight and cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hurt/comfort should probably have been on the taglist wayyyyy before this, but here we are.


End file.
